


All The Birds In The Sky

by blueberryeol, rockabyexo_fest



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, Mafia AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 21:44:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 56,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19484632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberryeol/pseuds/blueberryeol, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockabyexo_fest/pseuds/rockabyexo_fest
Summary: Chanyeol was young when he witnessed the death of his family, but old enough to remember the pain of losing them. Now, ten years later, he finally has the opportunity to get revenge on his enemies, but all of his plans soon begin to crumble, thanks to a small, stubborn boy with black hair and black eyes named Baekhyun -- his enemies' youngest son.Written for Rock A ByeRB069





	All The Birds In The Sky

**Author's Note:**

> ### Mod Notes
> 
> This work is written for the 2019 Rock A Bye Fic Fest: Round 1. We hope you enjoy! Make sure to give our writers all the love that they deserve~ Authors will be revealed on June 25!  
>  **Prompt:** RB069  
>  **Word count:** 56,739  
>  **Rating:** Mature  
>  **Pairing:** Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol  
>  **Characters:** Park Chanyeol, Byun Baekhyun, EXO members  
>  **Side pairing/s:** Wu Yifan/Kim Junmyeon; Kim Minseok/Lu Han  
>  **Warning/s:** Mentions of family death, mafia-related violence,
> 
> ### Author's Notes
> 
> First of all, thank you so much to the person who submitted this prompt! I'm very sorry, since I know that what I ended up writing was probably not what you had in mind, but I'm grateful for your idea because it was so much fun for me to write.  
> Secondly, thanks to whoever is reading this! There will be a part 2 and 3 coming out soon, so I hope you don't hate this first part!  
> Lastly, thank you SO much to the incredible mods of this. I've never participated in a fic fest before, and even though I was horrible at pacing myself and I kept asking for extensions, you were all so gracious, sweet, and understanding! This pushed me a lot, and I still lack a lot, but I enjoyed having a challenge. Thank you again so much!

_ “Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.”  _

**PROLOGUE [ten years ago]**

Marble, gold, and silver — the finest materials found in the leaders’ pockets had formed the edifice of this building. The young boy scaled the alabaster steps with reserved awe, dawdling far behind his siblings and parents, like always. His father’s shadow was long, and it rippled down the steps with a silent grace. The boy admired how the sun disappeared behind the man’s strong shoulders, shrouding him in his father’s shadow. He raced after his family when his mother’s heedful voice called for him, minding him not to get lost in the crowd. 

It would have been a reasonable request of any other mother, but with the wide girth that was given to the family by the surrounding swarm of people, the warning fell on deaf ears. Everyone knew the family; there wasn’t a soul in this half of the country that wouldn’t be able to recognize the commanding aura set by the Park brood, especially given their discernible height. 

Nonetheless, Chanyeol, being the youngest of the family, was propelled forward by years of his mother’s doting, and despite his strong urge to run ahead into the grand hall, he was forced to stay by the beautiful woman’s side. He traveled like a gander in formation, through the thick columns, past the stately foyer, and into the meeting hall made of mahogany and marble. An excited buzz swelled amongst the seated men and women at the entrance of the distinguished family, yet no words were said to them, aside from the usual hushed whispers passed from ear to ear. 

As the parents and their six children filed into the staggered seating behind the podium, Chanyeol was overtaken by the dreaded sense of how boring this ceremony was going to be. Just a bunch of grown-ups talking for a while, signing some document, and then talking some more. He understood that this was intended to be a collective move to stop the powerful man named Lee Sooman who had been rampaging the area for the past few years, but other than that he couldn’t comprehend much about the situation. He’d begged his mother to let him bring Jongin, Sehun, and Tao with him today for company, even promising that they’d be silent the entire time, but she had firmly told him no. 

Thinking about his three best friends waiting for him at home made him feel sulky and grumpy, so he contented himself with waiting while more and more observers poured into the room. Every five minutes or so, another prominent family would enter the room, and the familiar gossip would strike up amongst the crowd once more. Whispers were especially high when one particular family of five appeared, two men — one tall and one short — leading with three young brunet boys behind them, the smallest a lovely raven-haired child. Chanyeol wouldn’t have thought anything of them, had it not been for the walking stick, as he supposed it was, clutched in the tallest boy’s hand. 

“ _ He’s blind, you know _ ,” Chanyeol’s eldest brother whispered fervently in his left ear, leaning across their other siblings to say so. 

Annoyed at always being the last to know everything, Chanyeol just huffed and said, “I know that.” Still, he watched the family with hawklike vigilance as they crossed the room slowly 

but surely, the gentle  _ tap tap  _ of the blind boy’s cane hitting the marble floor with an eerie resonance. His left hand gripped the stick; his right was clutched by the raven-haired boy. 

Beside the blind boy — who, upon closer inspection, looked like he was nearly the age of a teenager — was the tall, light-haired man who had entered with them. Most likely his father, Chanyeol thought. There was something on the man’s arm, Chanyeol saw when the pair got closer: a collection of connected dots, like a miniature constellation, proudly displayed on his forearm. 

“All of the Wu’s get tattoos like that when they’re old enough,” Chanyeol’s eldest sister  announced to him, and he resisted the urge to strangle her, which was especially tempting when she wore such a pretentious smile. “It’s to symbolize their role in the clan. Each member gets a unique tattoo of a constellation — do you know what a constellation is?” 

“Of course I do!” retorted the young boy, turning away with an angry huff, though he was still intrigued by the idea. Sure, it was common for members to get a tattoo of their clan’s emblem, but for each person to have a unique symbol... It was a strange concept, one that he had never considered. He thought he liked the idea. 

Chanyeol’s curiosity was heightened when he saw his father nod at the towering man accompanying the blind boy. His father had been silent and still until that moment, but the look exchanged between the two male leaders was evidently enough to make his father’s fingers begin nervously tapping against the railing in front of them. 

For as long as he had known him, Chanyeol’s father had never been an anxious man. Seeing him, the epitome of tranquility, in such a disrupted state made the boy’s nerves teeter on edge. Desperate for distraction, his eyes made their way around the room, studying the impressive architecture and design. His attention was snagged by a series of words mounted above the arches, transcribed in beautiful oak letters:  _ Unity is strength. Division is weakness _ . A sense of serenity washed over Chanyeol, and he allowed himself to smile. There was no need to feel nervous. All of the fighting, and war, and terror would be over soon. Then they would have peace, and everything would be good again. Just like his parents said. 

“Sit up a little straighter, darling,” his mother murmured in his ear, and his spine snapped up straight like a rod. Soon after, a pair of manicured fingers began raking through his unruly locks, fussing with them and attempting to corral them. “And let me do something about these darned curls. For goodness sake, you look like a newborn duckling.” 

He heard his older brothers and sisters snickering at his overly-stiff posture, but willed himself to remain still, for once in his life. Today was an important day, after all, and even as young as he was, he would sooner die than ruin the occasion for his parents. 

The chatter flitting around the room was muted by the sudden sound of clanking wood, and all heads turned to peer as the heavy doors marking the entrance were slowly shut, requiring the aid of no less than five men for each. Privacy, as Chanyeol had been told numerous times by his parents in the weeks leading up to this moment, was paramount. 

With the sealing of the doors, Chanyeol’s father rose silently from his seat and strode towards the center of the room, with all the eyes of the observers, the leaders, and the leaders’ children watching with exaggerated interest. There in the middle stood a raised podium, the focal point separating the families like Chanyeol’s from the common folk who had come to watch. The young boy gazed with interest at the faces belonging to the people across the room from him: it was funny how, in here at least, he couldn’t tell who belonged to which clan, since the dress code had been neutral, formal attire. He, too, had been forced to leave behind the beloved phoenix emblem worn by his family, in favor of an itchy suit fitted to his thin frame. He was now just a face among the masses, one mafia member among hundreds. Any other day, and any other location, the clans’ signature uniforms and emblems would have given their organization away in an instant. 

But today was not like other days. “Welcome,” announced Chanyeol’s father’s booming voice, and it took the boy a moment to realize that there was not even a microphone to boost his volume, “ladies, and gentlemen, to the official signing of the Accords. This is a day that has been long-awaited by everyone present. I look around at the faces here, and I see the eagerness in them.” The leader of the Park clan paused, the silence inundating the room as rapidly as a flash flood. “I see your eagerness for unification. I see your eagerness for peace, and your eagerness for this war to end. Well, ladies and gentlemen” — another pause, this time with a small, reserved smile — “today, we end this war, and we restore peace in its place.” 

Although Chanyeol had been preached by his mother time and time again not to utter a sound throughout the entire ceremony, there was a loud chorus of hooping and hollering from the observers’ gallery. Chanyeol was astonished to see another smile, wider this time, appear on his father’s usually-worn face. He allowed himself to grin, too. 

Only his father’s hand could quiet the exuberant gatherers. “At this time, I would like to invite my fellow leaders to the podium, as we prepare to sign this historic document.” 

More applause and cheers bounced off the walls as each clan’s pair of leaders — men and women alike — marched towards the center stage with identical smiles on their faces. Chanyeol thought it was the first time he had seen so many adults smiling all at once. 

With a wave of his father’s hand, Chanyeol watched, along with everyone else in the room, as one leader — the tall man who had led the blind boy earlier — stepped forward to stand by his side. The leader of the Park clan had always been a giant in Chanyeol’s eyes, but this other man towered over his father so much it was almost comical. Almost. 

“I’m sure all of you are familiar with Wu Yifan,” continued Chanyeol’s father, his firm smile never wavering from his face. The man with the constellation tattoo, however, retained a tight-lipped expression, eyes guarded and cautious. Chanyeol would have thought it was strange, but his father kept smiling, so he did, too. “He has been extremely helpful in this whole operation, especially with the organization of the clans and securing this building so that we could all meet here today. I am often wrong, but I know I am correct when I say that it is because of Yifan that these Accords are being signed. Please, a round of applause for him, Junmyeon, and their family.” 

The observers followed the requests of Chanyeol’s father with blind exuberance, each grinning more enthusiastically than the last. The clapping was loud, much louder than the boy was used to, but he resisted the urge to flinch at the sound. He knew his mother would dislike him looking weak in front of the other clans. 

“Years of hardship have forced our clans to turn against each other, leaving a bad taste in our mouths whenever we come to terms with what we are:  _ mafia _ . That word will haunt us no more. With these Accords, we will rally together, and become stronger than ever!” 

More shouts from the observers. Someone began thumping their fists on the wooden seats, adding fuel to the flames already curdling the crowd. 

“Lee Sooman cannot break us now! No more will we hide from the Lee clan! No more will we allow ourselves to be controlled by one man!” 

More shouts. More thumping. Chanyeol suppressed a shiver. “ No more will our clans be slaughtered and enslaved! No more will our children be stolen from us and enslaved!  _ We will not stand for it! _ ” 

“ _ Mom _ ,” whispered Chanyeol, tugging on his mother’s sleeve. Chills were racing up and down his arms, rendering him a shivering, shaking statue. “I’m scared.” 

Casting a glance down at her son, the female leader of the Park clan smiled warmly at him, and ran a hand through his dark, messy curls. 

“Fix your hair, darling. You still look like a newborn duckling, with that big fluff ball on top of your head.” 

His mother’s hand was soothing, relaxing, calming in the middle of all that chaos, and his eyes resisted the urge to drift shut under her light touch. 

When the applause finally faded into silence, there was nothing but the gentle drone of expectation as Chanyeol’s father raised a quilled pen in the air, oddly reminiscent of Lady Liberty. “With this pen, and with this document, we begin a new era. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with...” The hand and the pen descended onto the paper, scrawling a name in wide, loopy letters. “...the first signature.” 

The applause this time was rambunctious, the roar so loud that Chanyeol’s ears physically  _ hurt  _ this time. Clamping his hands over his ears, he momentarily forgot about his desire not to appear weak, and in the midst of this, saw a rather peculiar sight: Wu Yifan, as Chanyeol now knew him to be, had folded into the throng of leaders crowded around the Accords, and retreated towards the back of the mob to stand beside the smaller man from earlier — the name his father had tossed out, Junmyeon, came to mind. In the entire room, they were the only two not smiling. Chanyeol wondered if they even  _ wanted  _ to be here — but that was a silly thought. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate such a joyous occasion like the Accords? Peace was finally here! War was finally over! 

Grabbing his attention once more, the wood-engraved words now planted themselves in Chanyeol’s mind —  _ Unity is strength. Division is weakness _ . He repeated the words over and over to himself, holding onto their power with an excitement he didn’t know he contained. He would have missed his mother was calling his name, were it not for the way one of his sisters brutally pinched him and glared at him. 

“Chanyeol.  _ Come on _ ,” she ordered him with an uppity, self-righteous tone. “You’re keeping everyone waiting.” 

Under his mother’s scrutiny, the boy resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and quickly scrambled out of the aisle so he could file out with the rest of his family. He followed them up towards a platform in the upper half of the room, situated high above all of the other families. It seemed a bit odd to Chanyeol that they were the only family receiving such special treatment, when this was supposed to be a congratulatory day for  _ everyone _ , but nobody else was complaining, so he opted not to either. His caution faded when he noted that the now-familiar words of unity, strength, division, and weakness were arched just over his and his family’s heads, as if solidifying the great feat they had accomplished together. 

When his father’s thunderous voice rumbled in the room again, Chanyeol found himself being pushed to the rear of the platform, his older siblings all jostling for a place closer to their parents. It was the pity of being the youngest, he supposed, but he was used to the competitiveness at this point, so he allowed himself to be forced into the background. Now bored with the speech his father still seemed to be delivering, the young boy looked behind him for something to occupy his interest. He was startled to see the five members of the Wu family positioned nearby, hidden from view of most of the observers and leaders in the meeting hall. There they all sat, sullen and stationery, like beaten brown logs in a row: the sharp-boned Wu Yifan, the serious yet soft Junmyeon, and their three boys beside them, the blind boy, the blinking brunet, and the black-haired boy last. 

Chanyeol wasn’t sure how long he had been staring until he made eye contact with the smallest boy stuck on the end, but he made sure to smile nonetheless. The boy made no move to smile back at him. 

Somewhere behind Chanyeol, standing in front of the assembly like some peremptory general, his father was shouting about war and peace, unity and division, strength and weakness. For the first time in his life, Chanyeol ignored what his father was saying. 

Instead, puzzled over the Wu family’s dismal countenance, the boy could only observe with confidential fascination as the five continued to remain as frozen as flowers in winter; their petalled faces seem to thaw, however, when a young woman in an all-black combat uniform appeared by Yifan’s side, muttering unidentifiable words in his ear. The woman seemed to be a confidante of theirs, judging by the Wu emblem plastered over the left side of her uniform, and her message must have been fairly important, for it caused the ever-calm Yifan to rise rapidly from his seat. He gestured for the other four to do the same, and they began to follow the young woman, towards the back doors of the meeting hall. The middle boy dragged along his blind brother frantically, as if they were running towards something — or, perhaps,  _ from  _ something. 

Though he was young, Chanyeol was intelligent enough to know that something was wrong. 

Why was that woman wearing a combat uniform in a formal atmosphere like this? What had happened to the assembly guard stationed at the back doors to prevent people from entering? Where were the Wus going that was so urgent, and so important? What could be more important than  _ this _ ? 

“Wait a second!” Chanyeol softly called as he clambered down from the platform and after the family, invisible behind the looming forms of his own relatives. 

Surprisingly, despite the evident rush the Wus felt, the youngest boy managed to turn and look at him. It was the raven-haired boy from before. Chanyeol didn’t try to smile at him this time. 

“Where are you going?” he huffed, more from adrenaline than exhaustion. His father’s voice was penetrating, even from this far away. 

The boy with black hair was silent for a moment, not seeming to care that his family had disappeared around the corner already. His eyes were big and black, blacker than the clothes that dominated the Park clan’s members, blacker than the ink now bleeding on the parchment of the Accords. They made Chanyeol feel as though he could perish at any moment, simply from staring too long, and he averted his gaze with a nervous gulp. 

That boy studied Chanyeol with those eyes of his for a moment longer, before speaking in a voice too light and feathery to belong to one with such a domineering appearance. 

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” The words were almost accusatory, as was the way he raised a single eyebrow in question. “You’re a Park.” 

Nearby, the cry “ _ JUSTICE! _ ” ripped from Chanyeol’s throat with terrifying ferocity. All Chanyeol could do was nod. “Then don’t ask. Don’t worry about me,” the Stygian boy said in response.  _ Then who should I worry about?  _ Chanyeol wanted to ask, but any words of protest were captured in his throat when the other ran out of the room, gone as quick as a tornado and leaving a feeling just as depressing. 

Every fiber in Chanyeol’s body urged him to run out of that room and follow that boy. The doors swung closed slowly, mocking him for his indecisiveness, but the sensation persisted. Some internal force wanted him  _ out _ , wanted him to disappear from that meeting hall with all of its leaders and Accords and unity and leave it all behind. But his mother’s voice was louder than the one inside of Chanyeol as she called to him. 

“Chanyeol!” she scolded with a slight hiss, face turned so that nobody but him would be able to see what she was saying. “Young man, you get back here!” 

“But, Mom, I —” 

“Stop wandering around so much! Don’t you know how important this is? For goodness sake, get over here!” 

Chanyeol’s body  _ screamed  _ at him not to do it, not to take another step, even as he began walking towards his mother and her exasperated smile. 

But it didn’t matter what his body wanted him to do, or what his mother wanted him to do, because Chanyeol never reached her. 

He was still a fair distance away when the platform exploded. Even then, with ten or so feet between him and the platform, the detonation felt like flames blasting directly onto his face. The wall of heat reached Chanyeol’s eyes before he had the chance to shut them, momentarily blinding him from the shrapnel and chunks of wood flinging towards him with the speed of a comet. The young boy was pinned against the floor and deprived of all oxygen upon impact with the marble tiles; his skin felt scorched, as if the Sahara Desert was clinging to his body and wrapping him in a scaly embrace. A high-pitched ringing clouded his ears for a moment, and stars dotted his vision while his lungs gasped for air. Though he was unable to clearly see or fully breathe, Chanyeol was still able to detect the blood-curdling screams surrounding him on all sides, overlapping with the roar of the flames and the screeching of the burning wood to sound like a chorus of ghostly spirits crying out for help. He wanted to keep his eyes shut, to curl into a ball and defend himself against the blistering heat, but he heard a familiar wail leaping up with the blaze, and forced himself into action. 

His mother’s voice had always been louder than anything else. 

“ _ Chanyeol! _ ” she called out to him, the words warped in all the chaos. Chanyeol dared to peer past the billowing smoke, past the unforgiving fire, and was met with a sight so gruesome he knew, even then, that it would be permanently seared into his mind. 

His family, his father, his mother, his brothers, his sisters, all lay in a broken pile on the platform, so scraggly and spent that they rather resembled intertwined needles in a haystack, he noted with a sick sort of detachment. Everywhere else, the room was dominated by mayhem, with the leaders and their families all scrabbling to pry open the two sets of impassive wooden doors as quickly as humanly possible. The smoke was too thick to see beyond that, to tell whether there were more casualties rather than his own family. 

How strange — he realized with the same convoluted objectiveness as before — his family emblem was the phoenix, yet here they were, burning to crisps right before his eyes. “Run!” his mother’s voice called out to the boy once again, hurling him back into the sweltering reality. “Chanyeol, run away!” 

The request ripped Chanyeol’s fragile heart into two jagged pieces. If he obeyed his mother and ran away, he might be able to get out of the hall in time to survive, maybe even run for help elsewhere. But if he stayed, he could try to save his family, perhaps drag them from the flames to safety; if any of them were still alive, that is. 

“Chanyeol, run!  _ Now! _ ” the last word leapt from his mother’s throat in a choked cry that died on her lips. The boy dared not look at her. 

Instead, he listened to her, and he ran away. Like a weakling. Like a coward. The boy’s feet were faster than his mind, transporting him across the grand hall and towards the door with inhuman speed. The doors were finally forced open, and the mob spilled into the foyer in a collective cry of relief. Chanyeol glanced above the archway, at the words that had been displayed there earlier. 

The wooden letters were ablaze, just like every other thing in that room that had once contained life. Only one letter was untouched, and under Chanyeol’s transfixed gaze, it became red and vibrant in color. It was  _ A,  _ the one at the end of “weakness.” 

The sight was enthralling to the young boy with big brown eyes. It called to him, and for no reason that he was able to pinpoint, he felt that it was connected to the explanation behind this massacre. That almighty letter would be burned into his brain for years, right beside the image of his family suffering an agonizing death in the smoke and flames. 

Had it not been for the desperate crowd surging around him, Chanyeol likely would have stayed in that room forever, just staring at the burning block letters up above; but as it was, he was propelled through the doorway. His slender body slammed against the marble tiles of the foyer, skin red and itchy from the close exposure to the fire. The escaping crowd continued on their escapade, but Chanyeol’s body had gulped down too much smoke, and it too wanted to escape, it seemed. 

There lay the young boy, abandoned in the empty foyer, as the billowing clouds of charcoal smoke leaked out into the hallway with him. Undetected tears silently streaked down his sooted face as he coughed up his lungs, hating himself and wanting to die there. 

But then the silence was interrupted by purposeful footsteps making their way towards Chanyeol, and finally stopping right in front of him. He cautiously peered up and saw a squarish man standing over him in a pristine white suit with not a smudge of dirt on it. Both his elaborate outfit and the kind smile he wore were far too out of place in such a somber situation. 

“Get up, Chanyeol,” the stranger told him gently, beaming down at him as if he was a lost puppy he’d just found wandering in his yard. “Now is not your time to die.” 

With ash and soot clinging to his face, and his head lightened by the smoke inside of him, Chanyeol could only let out a simple cough. He stared up at the man with tear-filled eyes, wondering momentarily if this man in the white suit was real, or an illusion caused by hysteria, or an angel sent by heaven to rescue him. 

“Who are you?” he finally dared to ask when he gained the strength. If possible, the savior’s grin grew even wider. 

“A friend.” Before Chanyeol could question how the other knew his name, the man reached down into his pocket and pulled out a glossy card, which he then handed down to the boy. On it was a single phone number. 

“When you decide you’re ready, call me.” The man kept smiling. “I’ll help you find them.” Chanyeol noted the way the stranger had begun to back away, and, though somewhat wobbly, he managed to rise to his knees, willing him not to go yet. He had so many questions, yet so little time. 

“Find who?” was all he managed to get out, before erupting into another coughing fit. The air tasted like blood and smoke. 

“The people who did this to your family,” the man in the suit said, and then he was gone: a beam of white swallowed by the dark clouds of smoke crowding the foyer. 

Desperation inundated Chanyeol’s veins, forcing him to his feet and propelling him after the suited stranger. He raced down the end of the hallway and, spotting an open door that led outside, burst through the exit. Relief and oxygen both flooded his body — he was  _ alive _ , he realized, as he collapsed once more onto the rough pavement — but disappointment soon followed; the strange man who had saved him was gone. 

Still coughing and hacking grotesquely, it took a moment for the young boy to regain his senses, and to control his breathing at a normal rate. When the realization of all that had happened came back to him — the Accords, the fire, his family — Chanyeol felt a burn inside of him. 

It was no weak burn. It was strong: stronger and more intense and more terrifying than any of the flames that had leapt inside of the meeting hall earlier. Chanyeol was consumed by this fire, this desire to get revenge on whoever did this to him, to his family. 

The laminated card was pinched between his fingers; he noticed it only because it was beginning to hurt by how hard he was gripping it. He turned the card over in his fingers, and finally read the fated numbers printed there: 

928-408-2012 Chanyeol read the numbers, over and over again, searing them into his memory and knowing that they would never fade away, nor would the agonizing screams of his mother, nor the sound his father’s voice as he cried for justice, nor the image of his older siblings burning before his very eyes. 

_ I’ll help you find them. The people who did this to your family _ , the mysterious man had said. With the return of those words came the recollection of a particular family sneaking out of the meeting, mere moments before the explosion occurred. 

Chanyeol wasn’t an idiot: he  _ knew  _ who was responsible for his family’s death. The boy tucked the card into his pocket, and stood up slowly. Sirens wailed around him as the police and firefighters finally arrived at the scene, too late to give help to anyone who would’ve needed it. It’s not like it mattered to Chanyeol, though: he knew what he needed, and it wasn’t useless help from people like them. 

What Chanyeol needed — what he craved now, more than anything — was  _ revenge _ . And so he faded into the shadows of the late evening, orphaned and alone, with only one thing driving him forward: 

Hunting down the Wu family, and killing every last one of them. 

* * *

_ “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown, but longed for still.”  _

**PART I, chapter i**

The day that Chanyeol bumped into the boy in the black hoodie, he had the misfortune of playing the role of babysitter to his friends. 

“It’s too damn hot!” Sehun complained with a groan, batting at the air around him as if it were to blame for his troubles. He had already tried cursing out the sun’s cruel rays, and since that had done nothing, his friends had watched him resort to similar futile methods. 

“I told you to wear sunscreen,” Jongin reminded him with a bemused grin. The angry red rash that had appeared over the tall boy’s neck and arms was no joke; Chanyeol wouldn’t have wished something that brutal even on his worst enemy (which was something he had been given plenty of time to contemplate over the last ten years). 

Chanyeol watched as Sehun’s eyes narrowed into small slits, the boy clearly wishing he had the same flawless tan skin as their friend. The other three were covered in various scratches, burns, bites, and blisters, while Jongin somehow remained untouched. 

“We ran out of sunscreen because Tao refused to share,” Sehun noted, not bothering to tone down his childish tone as he swatted at a mosquito whizzing by. “It’s not my fault!” 

“Sehun.” Chanyeol let out a sigh. It was too hot for this. “Stop embarrassing me. Please? People are beginning to stare.” 

The younger grumbled some incomprehensible words, but had the decency to stop flailing his limbs around like some grizzly bear provoked by a mere bee. Though stubborn as a mule, Chanyeol knew Sehun could at least acknowledge that he was right: attention was the last thing they needed, especially in a setting like this. 

“Sorry, Sehun,” Jongin apologized in Chanyeol’s place, knowing the older was unlikely to do so. “We just need to lie low.” 

Recalling that, a sight up ahead caught Chanyeol’s eye, and he grinned in wicked amusement, pointing in front of the three males. “That reminds me. It seems our poor friend is being conned by these venders, so let’s go lend him a hand.” 

Jongin’s big, soft eyes hardened when he spotted Tao up ahead, visibly trying yet failing to coax a man on the street to bargain with him. His dark eyes were set ablaze by irritation, and his nostrils were flared up for the same reason. Chanyeol suppressed a smirk, and urged Jongin and Sehun to follow him. 

“But you told me it was two dollars!” Tao was saying when the three approached him, keeping a cautious distance. “And that’s all I have! But now you’re saying I have to pay extra because I want  _ mustard _ ?” 

The vendor — a stocky man with a comical handlebar mustache, which Chanyeol had to do a double-take at — shrugged listlessly. “Listen, buddy. It’s two bucks on its own, and ten more cents if you want mustard. I don’t make the rules.” 

If possible, Tao’s flaming eyes seemed to blaze up even more so. “ _ Liar!  _ This is your hot dog cart, so you decide what the prices are! You could give me a discount if you really wanted to!” 

Although the man had been relatively calm up until that moment, his lips split into a sinister smile, and he rolled up his sleeves. There was a powerful pair of biceps beneath them. “Well, I don’t really feel like giving you a discount. Got a problem with that?” 

“Hell yeah, I do!” Tao seethed as he flung down the hot dog in protest. Beside Chanyeol, a small snicker was heard from Sehun. “You call that lying low?” Chanyeol resisted the urge to snort as he surged forward. They had to step in now, he knew, or Tao might get himself into trouble —  _ again _ . 

“‘Scuse me, sir,” he greeted the vendor with a loud, friendly drawl. Other eyes were drawn his way, but that was fine. That was what he wanted — for now at least. 

The man, doubting his sudden good nature, squinted at him. “What do you want?” “Him,” he replied with a nod towards his friend. “I’m sorry if he was bothering you earlier. “You know him?” The frown lines around the stout man’s eyes deepened. “He wouldn’t pay ten cents —  _ ten cents _ . What’s wrong with him?” 

Wrapping an arm around Tao, who was still visibly fuming, Chanyeol sighed and shook his head, as if pained by the words he was about to bear unto the other. “Unfortunately, he has chronic chrometophobia.” 

“What the hell is that?” Chanyeol’s shoulders heaved with a facade of compassion and pity. “The fear of money.”  The vendor didn’t look particularly intelligent, but, Chanyeol had to admit, he at least  knew when to concede in an argument. A simple once-over was enough for the shorter man to confirm that Chanyeol was too broad for him to bicker with much longer, so he simply muttered something intelligible under his breath and sent a single sizzling glare at Tao, who once again had to be restrained by Jongin as the four walked away. Chanyeol strode purposely in front of them, the small crowd that had gathered immediately dissipating when they realized there would be no fight for them to watch. Not today. 

“You are so stupid,” he heard Sehun scold in a condescending tone, and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. 

Thankfully, Jongin voiced his thoughts for him. “ _ You’re  _ one to talk, Sehun. Chanyeol and I have been running everywhere trying to keep track of you two. You certainly didn’t make it easy for us.” 

As the four made their way further down the street, away from the street vendors and closer to the actual shops lining the bustling sidewalks, Chanyeol turned to look over his shoulder at his friends. He met Tao’s eye and the younger stuck out his tongue at him. He smirked at the childish act and relented with an exaggerated sigh. “ _ Fine _ , if you want to be a brat about it. I had planned for us to wait a few more hours, but we can go to lunch now —” 

A chorus of cheers from Sehun and Tao cut the taller off, and he rolled his eyes in annoyance once more. 

“ —  _ if  _ you promise not to embarrass me anymore. It’s too hot for this, guys.” He was met with no qualms, and continued to push further into the densening crowd, funneling into the downtown Sedona area, all the while remaining alert of anyone that drifted too close to them or dared to let their gaze linger longer than necessary. It was a habit more than anything else, a state of mind that he had been forced to adapt to after ten years of fleeing from hostile mafia forces, or the more pesky, mundane gangs that often littered the backstreets and alleyways of cities: a lifestyle that had chipped away all the soft, rounded corners of a naive boy, and left only the sharpest edges of a young man sculpted by hatred and fear. 

A hand, probably Jongin’s, reached out to grasp his shoulder. “Chanyeol, look out!” Lost in his broodings, Chanyeol was unable to react with his usual trained reflexes; but even so, it would have taken powers of teleportation to be able to dodge the form that came staggering towards him out of the crowd, roughly crashing into him and knocking him back a few steps. 

Faster than he could blink, Chanyeol’s friends had formed a tight ring around the newcomer so that he was caged in all four sides. The stranger, clad in a black sweatshirt that hid his face, was practically the size of a pea, which looked quite ridiculous with the circle of giants towering over him. 

“Excuse me, I need to get by,” the stranger murmured, voice muffled, from under the hood. 

Chanyeol resisted the urge to snort. “Listen, buddy, I don’t know if you’re new here on the planet Earth, but typically people don’t just barrel into strangers on the street without at least saying ‘sorry’ first.” 

“Maybe you should watch where you’re going,” suggested the boy, as Chanyeol was prone to label him for his lack of height. 

He felt Sehun bristle beside him, and grabbed the younger’s fist before he could do anything too drastic, despite his own blood beginning to broil. It was too  _ hot  _ for this kind of thing today. He just wasn’t in the mood. 

But, remembering the importance of obscurity, he busied himself with studying the mystery boy’s appearance, and noted once again that he was weighed down by heavy, all-black clothes, down to the small sneakers he wore. It was odd, he realized: why, on such a hot day like today, was he covered up so much? He had to be burning up under that hood. 

Thankfully, Jongin intercepted in the conversation on his behalf, plastering a genteel smile on his face. “A simple apology would be nice,” he recommended with a cautious glance towards Chanyeol. “Then we can all move on.” 

Whether the boy didn’t catch Jongin’s look of warning, or he simply didn’t care, he made no move to apologize. Instead, he tried to wriggle his way out of the circle, getting stuck between Chanyeol’s arms as he grabbed the shorter by the shoulders. 

“Whoa there, where do you think you’re going?” “Let me  _ go _ ,” the other boy demanded in a tone just as presumptuous. He sounded so entitled, it made the taller want to laugh, especially given how small the boy’s frame felt under Chanyeol’s hands. It was funny, sure, but this kid was starting to get on his nerves. 

“Most people would say ‘sorry’ or something like that,” Chanyeol reminded him through a false smile, “or at least have the decency to pay attention to their surroundings. Maybe if you took off your hood, you’d actually be able to see where you’re going.” 

As he spoke, Chanyeol reached for the boy’s hood and yanked it down, eliciting a small squeak of surprise from the other. With the hood down, Chanyeol was startled by the shorter’s appearance. 

His face was older than Chanyeol would have thought, bringing him closer to his own age than the young boy he had initially pegged him to be. His eyes were big, black, and bold, though Chanyeol thought he detected a bit of gold glistening at the center of them. It seemed a bit cheesy to think, but they reminded him of Capella, two of the most brilliant stars that he had observed in the night sky. Despite the way the boy was glaring at him with all his might, the beauty of his features could not be denied. 

With Chanyeol blinking down at him, the short boy seemed to grow flustered, and he snatched up his hood with a huff. “I have somewhere to be. Now if you’ll excuse me...” 

He made sure to send one last glare in Chanyeol’s direction before storming out of the circle. The taller made no move to stop him this time. His eyes followed after the boy of their own will, and it took Jongin’s hand on his shoulder to pull his gaze away. 

“Enough of that,” Jongin said to him with a smile. “We’d better go eat lunch before Tao puts himself into cardiac arrest.” 

Chanyeol grinned upon seeing his friend’s exaggerated pout, and the boy in the black hood was forgotten among the group’s prospects of hamburgers stacked high beside a mountain of French fries. 

************ 

Eight burgers and several platters of fries later, Chanyeol lay reclined back in his seat, arms folded in contentment over his chest. It had been a while since they’d all been able to eat that much, but the four had recently begun taking up a number of “side jobs”, handed down to them by some of the more infamous and wealthy tycoons embroiled in the mafia. 

There were very few mafias that had managed to continue on as their own entities following the disaster at the Accords’ signing, though it was largely thanks to the vast fortunes their leaders had acquired over the past few decades. It was common knowledge that not all of that money was clean, and despite having initially opposed jobs offered by them, the reality had 

eventually hit Chanyeol in the form of mind-numbing starvation one night; from then on, he had resolved that the morals behind such side jobs — however shady and disreputable they happened to be — were not worth more than his friends’ lives. And so Chanyeol had given in to being the hunting dog for those rich bastards, biding his time until the day that he would once again obtain a prominent position for himself and his friends. 

Needless to say, he was glad that the extra work was paying off. “That was the best burger I’ve had in my entire life,” Sehun belted out with a burp that he made no attempt to conceal. 

Tao took a sip of his gallon-sized drink. “You barely tasted it, with the way you were shoving all that meat down your throat.” 

Reaching for a handful of fries, Sehun paused long enough to send a greasy wink Tao’s way, the other rolling his eyes in response but making a kissy-face nonetheless. 

“You guys are disgusting,” Chanyeol groaned as he covered his eyes from the horrific sight. 

He heard Sehun begin to reply, probably some lame retort, but the boy was cut off by an uproar of laughter from nearby. Chanyeol glanced over to see a table full of heavily-bearded brutes seated in a circle, like some pathetic parody of the Knights of the Roundtable. Their excess tattoos, bandanas, sunglasses, and studded apparel made him cringe, and he briefly wondered if the row of motorcycles lined up like dominos outside belonged to them. His thoughts were abruptly cut by more rip-roaring hoots and hollers from the crowd. Chanyeol rubbed his eyes impatiently: it was too loud. And it was still too damn hot. 

Tao was the one who saved Chanyeol from instantaneous combustion. “Have you guys heard the news lately?” 

“I didn’t think you were the type to listen to gossip,” Sehun laughed, pointing at the television overhead that was blasting reports on the latest buzz in Hollywood: some actor had cheated on his celebrity wife with another actress, who was also married. It was a wonder the country managed to function with so many idiots in it, Chanyeol thought to himself with a bitter grin. 

Tao, however, barely cracked a smile. “No, about Lee Sooman. Word has it he’s on the move again.” 

Interested suddenly snagged, Chanyeol leaned forward in his seat. “What do you mean? It was clear that the younger enjoyed having all eyes on him, for he took his time to speak, inhaling a long sip from his nearly-empty glass. “Apparently, the past few months he’s been going around the country and taking over other clans. He just comes in and — well, you know how the Lee mafia is. He just completely oblectates them.” 

“Uh, Tao,” Jongin spoke while trying not to smile, “I think you mean  _ obliterate _ .” Nearby, the band of bearded bikers cheered some intelligible chant and raised their foam cups to their mouths. Chanyeol ignored them, his mind for once focusing on something besides the fact that it was too hot, too loud, too crowded. “Tao, there’s no way that’s true. Lee Sooman is dead.” 

The younger shrugged at him, lips crumpled into a confused frown. “I thought he was too. But obviously he’s not. Just yesterday, he and his forces ambushed the Song clan.” 

“ _ What? _ ” Chanyeol was stunned into silence — the Songs were known to be a peaceful, law-abiding clan that mostly stayed tucked into the folds of the Sierra Nevada. What reason would Lee Sooman have for striking down such a secluded mountain people? 

Sehun voiced his question for him: “But why? Why now? It’s been nearly ten years since there was any violence between clans.” 

“And ten years since the Accords,” Tao pointed out with a wave of his now-empty cup. “Don’t you think that could have something to do with it?” 

“Be quiet, you two,” Jongin ordered with a scowl. He cast Chanyeol a furtive glance, clearly trying to gauge his reaction, yet the older remained silent. His three friends were staring at him cautiously now, but he refused to look at them. He couldn’t bare to see the pity that would surely be plastered across their faces. 

Without warning, the tall boy stood from the table, his chair screeching against the floor. “I need to piss. I’ll be back soon.” 

Six eyes blinked at him, startled, as he abruptly left them behind; it was a tactic to avoid bringing more awkwardness into the conversation, but that didn’t mean he was shielded from the horrible sense of shame and recollection of pain that came with the mention of the Accords. As he was walking away, he heard Jongin whispering angrily at the other two: “Why’d you have to bring up the Accords? Now he’s going to be all moody for the rest of the trip.” 

Chanyeol rolled his eyes — typical, for Jongin to be the one fretting over his every move — but was prevented from brooding any further by the sight of a few of the burly guys from earlier. They too, it seemed, had been on a trip to the restroom, but had made a side-stop in the corner. The five of them were gathered around a small figure, too short for his head to even be seen over the men’s broad shoulders. 

“Watch where you’re going, kid,” one of the men ordered in a rough voice, and Chanyeol nearly choked when he finally caught sight of the boy in the middle of the circle: it was the same boy from earlier, the one that had bumped into Chanyeol and his friends. 

His hood was still up, but at least his face was visible now, and it was covered with the same amount of disdain and pride as before. Despite being surrounded on all sides by five giants, the boy had the gall to roll his eyes in front of them and let out an annoyed sigh. “ _ You’re  _ the one who was in the way, you cretin. Maybe if you tried trimming that grotesque beard of yours, you’d actually be able to see people who aren’t the size of pigs, like you.” 

Chanyeol’s ears were ringing with the weight of such a heavy-handed insult, though he knew it was only a moment or two before the dull-minded bikers unwrapped the meaning behind the boy’s complex words. For some inexplicable reason — maybe because he didn’t feel like witnessing a murder so early in the day — Chanyeol’s feet carried him towards the ruckus. 

“There you are!” he cried in a relieved tone, the vibrato of his voice making all six heads turn towards him. Chanyeol watched the arrogance slide right off the short boy’s face, replaced by shock, and he smirked, somehow feeling like he had accomplished a great feat. 

He strolled up to the little congregation with a slight swagger in his step, slinging an arm around the boy’s neck and displaying all of his teeth in a blinding smile. “I’ve been looking  _ everywhere  _ for you!” 

The boy said nothing, blinking so rapidly that it was evident no real thoughts were being formulated behind those big black eyes of his. The bikers, however, had seemingly just caught up to the situation, and were not too happy about the way they’d been insulted. One of them shoved a finger into Chanyeol’s chest. “Is this your friend?” 

As if he was trying to sabotage Chanyeol’s rescue efforts, the boy chose that moment to remember how to speak. “We’re  _ not  _ friends. I don’t —” 

Chanyeol shut him up with a bruising pinch on the back of his neck, covering up the boy’s whimper with an exaggerated laugh of his own. “He’s not my friend: he’s my little brother.” He squeezed the boy into a tight hug, making sure to put an extra amount of force into it. “I was so worried about you, dear brother! Where have you been?” 

The bikers didn’t seem to care too much about the beauty behind a belated family reunion. One of them, whose dark bushel of hair was wrapped up in a dirt-caked purple bandana, crossed his arms and stepped forward. “You should teach your baby brother some manners then. It seems like your parents never taught him how to say sorry.” 

At those words, the boy bristled like an angry dog between Chanyeol’s arms. Before the boy could say anything he’d regret, the taller chuckled and blurted out: “That’s because he’s got a chronic illness. It’s called sientophobia.” 

Upon seeing the bikers’ blank stares, Chanyeol stifled a smile and forced a pained expression on his face. “The fear of apologizing.” 

Despite their appearances, the bikers, it seemed, were not completely stupid. The biggest (and baldest) of the bunch grunted out some intelligible sound, which must have been a signal of some sort, because the brutes began closing in on all sides. 

Chanyeol sighed: he really didn’t want to have to do this right now. He was still digesting those hamburgers he’d eaten earlier. 

But when the first fist flew towards his face, the boy had no choice but to duck and respond with a left hook just as powerful. The bald man reeled back in shock, appalled by the boy’s ability to pack a punch, and Chanyeol just grinned at him. Another fist then came flying at him, but was stopped this time by a hand reaching out and stopping it. Chanyeol glanced over and saw Jongin’s fingers wrapped around the tattooed man’s wrist in a vice-like grip. Sehun and Tao stood just a bit past him, looking just as eager to fight, and a simple smile from the oldest was all they needed to jump to his defense. 

The corner of the restaurant by the restrooms was a whirlwind of furious fists, muttered curses, and grunts of pain as the younger boys battled against the bikers; to any random passerby, the sight would have seemed like a reason to call for the police, but the cops surely wouldn’t have understood how four boys were able to take down such bulky giants as the five older men. When it was all said and done, and the five men lay scattered amongst the toppled chairs and tables all askew, the only thing that Chanyeol could do was laugh breezily. It had been a while since he’d gotten into a good-old fashioned fist fight, and he felt as if his street skills, though a bit rusty, had needed to be freshened up a bit. 

“That was fun,” he admitted to his friends with a satisfied smile, “but I do feel a little bad for them. The five of them against us four wasn’t really a fair fight — for  _ them _ .” 

Sehun and Tao grinned along with him, but it was Jongin that raised an eyebrow at him, looking somewhat disapproving. “What happened to ‘lying low’?” 

“Huh?”

“Why’d you try to fight them?” Jongin rephrased with a gentle sigh — he wasn’t disappointed, just weary, Chanyeol could tell. He would’ve been mildly offended about the fact that Jongin had automatically assumed _he_ was the one who had started the fight, and not the men, but the other had a cut running down his tricep that made him swallow with a slight tinge of guilt. 

“I was only trying to defend that boy.” Tao peered behind Chanyeol. “What boy?” Whirling around, the oldest noted the glaring absence of the boy in the black hoodie, who at some point must have escaped from his tight grip. He groaned in annoyance: that boy really  _ did  _ seem to lack basic manners. A simple “thank-you” would have sufficed, after all that he and his friends had done to help him. 

As if the universe had heard his griping, a dark blur appeared in the peripheral of Chanyeol’s vision; turning, he spotted a black splotch passing by the window, zipping away from the restaurant at a speedy pace. 

Irritation boiled inside of Chanyeol’s veins, and before he knew it, he was heading towards the door, fists clenched on either side of him. When Jongin called out to him, asking where he was going, he merely muttered some excuse, saying “I’ll be right back,” before leaving his friends bewildered and bemused. 

The bell above the door tinkled kindly as Chanyeol ran out of the restaurant, nearly tripping over his own feet when he bumped into an elderly couple passing by. He nodded at them with a tight-lipped smile and rapidly raced around the corner where he’d watched the boy go. There was a narrow alley, if one could even call it that, nestled behind the restaurant, with only a few garbage cans and a dumpster for excess trash. Chanyeol scrunched his nose at the filth rotting in the sweltering heat, then forgot all about the stench when he caught sight of the boy in the black hoodie, about to climb over the fence that lined the alleyway. 

“Hey!” he called out, not really knowing what else to say. It sounded stupid and overly accusatory, even to his own ears. 

Thankfully, the boy paused long enough to glance down at Chanyeol, his eyes widening at his presence before squinting suspiciously. “Oh, it’s you again.” 

“Yeah, it’s ‘me’. The guy that saved your ass back there.” The boy just blinked at him, and Chanyeol felt his anger surging up again. “You’re welcome, by the way.” 

Nothing in the boy’s expression changed, aside from his eyes narrowing even more. “I didn’t ask you to help me. I could handle those ruffians myself.” 

Chanyeol didn’t know which was funnier: the fact that the other had actually used the word “ruffians”  _ and meant it _ , or the concept of the small, birdlike boy being able to defend himself against men of the bikers’ size. He must have stood there smirking too long, because the boy quickly decided that Chanyeol wasn’t worth his time; he gave up on trying to scale the fence, and instead attempted to pass by the taller boy on his way out of the alley. 

But Chanyeol wasn’t done with him. He still wanted his apology from earlier, petty as it was. He just didn’t like this boy, and rude manners were at the top of the “Things To Make Today Suck” list. So as the raven-haired stranger made to exit the alleyway, Chanyeol grabbed 

his wrist, a pathetic, last-ditch effort on his part, in retrospect. “One second, I’m not done with —” 

Whatever he’d been about to say to the shorter made no difference, as Chanyeol was suddenly being shoved towards the fence, his face squished against the wooden planks mercilessly. The hand that had been holding onto the boy was now forced behind his back in an inescapable position that left him grimacing in pain. 

“I don’t know who you are, or why you’re following me, but if you value your life, I recommend that you leave right now,” the boy said in his arrogant, lilting voice, as if it truly was just a friendly suggestion. The way his fingers dug into Chanyeol’s skin said otherwise. 

Chanyeol huffed — he was thoroughly irritated now. This boy, who looked paper-thin as a sparrow’s wings, had the audacity to try attacking  _ him _ , after he’d just defended him! His grip was surprisingly strong, despite his small stature, although it wouldn't have surprised Chanyeol if the other believed himself to be the biggest person alive. The thought would have made the taller laugh, but then he felt the blade pressed against the vein running down his throat, and he had to suppress a shudder. 

_ Enough of this,  _ Chanyeol thought to himself, before grabbing the boy’s hand that wielded the knife and thrusting it toward the ground so that the weapon fell to the ground instantly. He heard the smaller by gasp quietly, the sound soon silenced as he was forced onto the ground, stomach-down. Chanyeol hovered over him, one knee pinning him to the dirt and the other forcing an arm behind his back in a similar position to the one he’d just been detained in. 

“Well I don’t know who you are either,” Chanyeol commented in a condescending tone that filled him with satisfaction, “but if  _ you  _ value  _ your  _ life, I recommend that you never, ever touch me like that again.” 

There was no answer from the boy — merely a gentle whimper that sounded like an overly playful puppy being kicked. Chanyeol didn’t know if the stranger was faking his pain to elicit sympathy, or if he truly was suffering from the position. Either way, it didn’t matter to Chanyeol: an enemy was an enemy, no matter the circumstances. 

“I demand that you let go of me right now,” the defeated boy demanded as he began to writhe beneath Chanyeol, his little legs kicking furiously at the ground. This time Chanyeol just had to chuckle. 

“You’re only wasting your energy,” he laughed in a deep rumble that made his shoulders shake. “You’re not going anywhere now.” 

The taller’s eyes slowly meandered down to the boy’s struggling form, landing upon his restrained arm. The sleeve of his dark sweatshirt was pushed up a bit there, so that it revealed the expanse of smooth skin, as well as the markings that were imprinted there — a tattoo, most likely. It looked like a constellation of some sorts, with four brilliant orbs connected one by one in a zig-zag line. 

Chanyeol blinked at the markings — once, twice. His grip on the boy’s arm tightened, if only to steady himself, and he ignored the exaggerated brunt of pain that escaped his captive, although it did remind him of his presence. 

“What do you want from me?” he heard the boy ask, all high and mighty. “Are you going to kill me?” 

Snapping back to the present, Chanyeol leaned down to face the boy, who seemed startled by the lack of distance between them. His eyes were wide with defiance, though there did seem to be a shade of fear hiding in their inky depths. 

“Are you a Wu?” whispered Chanyeol in a voice too quiet to be his own. The boy’s eyelashes fluttered in surprise. 

“What?” 

“Your tattoo,” Chanyeol went on in a more confident tone, unable to hold back his rising excitement, “I recognize it. It’s a constellation, isn’t it? You’re part of the Wu clan, aren’t you?” 

For the first time, the ever-verbose boy seemed to be at a loss for words. “I... Um...” This was Chanyeol’s chance. The opportunity he had been searching the country for over the last ten years had surfaced right in front of him, in the form of a stubborn, squirming boy in a grungy hoodie. It seemed too real to be true, almost as if Chanyeol would wake up at any moment and be back at square one, but he was determined not to lose hold of this chance. He was desperate for the door leading to revenge and relief, and this boy with big black eyes before him held the key. 

Defying every urge in him to strangle the stranger, Chanyeol plastered on a blinding smile. “It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you.” 

“What?” the boy repeated, just as lost and confused as before. Recognizing that he was, in fact, still crushing the smaller, Chanyeol sprung from his position and extended a hand to help the boy up, which the other pointedly ignored. He instantly scrambled for the knife lying nearby, though Chanyeol was faster, and swept it up quickly. The boy’s eyes widened in shock when, instead of attempting to stab him with the blade, the taller merely handed it over with a smile. 

“I promise, I don’t want to hurt you,” Chanyeol lied through his teeth. “I wouldn’t have pinned you just now if I’d known who you were.” 

The boy’s eyes squinted with suspicion. “Why does it matter what clan I belong to? What business do you have with the Wus?” 

Chanyeol had always been commended for his quick thinking skills, and scolded just as many times for the correlated ability to lie on the spot. Now was no exception. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Actually, I’ve been looking for the  _ Wus  _ anywhere, or any clan, really. You see, my friends and I were forced to flee our clans after Lee Sooman attacked us.” 

At this, realization replaced the suspicion in the boy’s eyes. “Lee Sooman?” “Right. He’s on the move again, you know,” Chanyeol parroted Tao’s words from earlier, though the short boy seemed to already be aware of the powerful man’s actions. “We had no choice but to leave, and we’ve been wandering around ever since, trying to find a clan who might take us in.” 

_ Not a complete lie _ , Chanyeol admitted to himself, though somewhat bitterly. The taller knew his words were convincing to the boy standing in front of him, merely from the way that he had gradually lowered his weapon and let his shoulders relaxed; now, he seemed almost like a deflated balloon that had been left out to suffer in the sun, though perhaps that was just an effect of the enormous black hoodie he was still stubbornly wearing. Chanyeol smirked at the sight, amused at the idea that the oh-so noble boy was surely uncomfortable beneath that bundle of clothing. 

Unfortunately, his expression was not invisible, and the sudden eye contact with the raven-haired male forced him to transform his smirk into a smile. The other furrowed his brow, as if doubting the sincerity of his smile, then released a weary sigh. 

“If you can prove to me that what you say is true... I’ll take you to meet the rest of my clan.” 

“You want me to prove it?” For a brief moment, Chanyeol panicked — how was he supposed to convince the other of his nomad status, without exposing the truth of his background? It was a tricky task — but not too tough for the ever-prepared Park Chanyeol. 

So with a brilliant smile and a broad sweep of his arm, the taller began strolling back towards the restaurant’s entrance. “Follow me.” 

He didn’t check to see if the other boy was behind him, but smiled to himself when he didn’t hold the door open behind him, and he heard an annoyed grunt emanate from the shorter. 

When the pair entered the restaurant, they were greeted by a clump of people milling about, among them employees and customers of the restaurant, as well as a few of the bikers from earlier; the ones that Chanyeol and his friends had fought, however, were nowhere to be seen, and he assumed that the restaurant staff had escorted them out following the fist fight. His three friends were also not to be found in the corner — instead, Chanyeol spotted them hiding behind massive menus at a table wedge on the opposite side of the room. He grinned and beckoned the boy in the black hoodie to follow him, not missing the way the stranger’s eyes were wide with bewilderment. Chanyeol had a moment to wonder if it was because of the restaurant’s bustling atmosphere — it was still extremely hot and loud, to be fair — or if that was simply the boy’s permanent expression when he wasn’t glaring laserbeams at someone. 

“Chanyeol!” Tao cried upon seeing the taller’s nearing form, the confusion on his face deepening with apprehension when he caught sight of the boy that now accompanied him. 

“We were worried about you,” Jongin added on, his wariness less obvious than Tao’s. “We thought maybe the bikers had gone after you and attacked you again.” 

Chanyeol scoffed at that. “ _ Please _ . You guys know I’m the best fighter around. Those idiots wouldn’t be able to land a single punch against me.” 

A snort identical to the one Chanyeol just emitted was heard from beside him. He turned and saw the black-haired boy rolling his eyes at him, a habit which he seemed fond of. “Arrogant much?” 

“And you’re short, so shut up,” he retorted automatically. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be winning this guy over, and plastered a painfully wide smile on his face. “Ha. Just kidding.” 

For too long, silence passed between the group, stiffening the atmosphere and putting everyone on edge. It was Sehun who decided to break the tension, and he spoke up in his typical whiny voice (which, for once, Chanyeol was grateful for). “So who is this guy?” 

As expected, the boy made no move to introduce himself first — he seemed to be waiting on the other three boys’ answers — so Chanyeol just turned his attention to his friends and prayed that they would go along with what he had to say. “Go ahead, guys. Introduce yourselves.” 

The trio of males looked equally confused by his request, but Jongin was the first to be cordial and follow his request. He smiled lightly and stuck out a hand for the boy in the hoodie to shake. “I’m Jongin. It’s nice to meet you.” 

Chanyeol intervened before the raven-haired boy could even think about shaking Jongin’s hand. 

“Not only that, Jongin. Tell him who you  _ really  _ are.” 

“Uh...” For once, the tan male was stumped. Chanyeol knew he was doubting the order, since they had made it a practice in recent years  _ never  _ to hand out information about their pasts, but the look the tall boy wore must have been earnest and confident enough to reassure Jongin, who nodded and turned his gaze onto the boy in the sweatshirt. “Alright. My name is Jongin, and I come from the Kim clan.” 

When the boy said nothing, Chanyeol nudged Sehun to go next, and the other, thankfully, didn’t miss a beat this time. “I’m Sehun. Oh Sehun.” 

Though the raven-haired boy’s expression didn’t change persay, his eyebrows seemed to twitch, ever so slightly, as if he was stunned by the news. “But... I thought that all of the Oh’s were gone.” 

A wry smile crossed Sehun’s features, bitter by the facts that had followed him for fifteen years. “Aside from me, you could call them extinct.” 

Clearing his throat to ease the awkwardness permeating the air, Tao spoke up next. “And I’m Tao. I used to be a part of the Huang mafia.” 

This time, the brunet boy’s eyebrows quirked upwards in a full arc. “‘Used to be’?” Tao, like Sehun, smiled at the boy, though there was less bitterness there. “I guess you could say we’re extinct too.” 

“Ah, I see,” was all the boy had to say in response to that. His face was stoic again, but his hands — Chanyeol could see them flitting anxiously inside the pocket of his sweatshirt, his nimble fingers dancing over each other in a nervous frenzy. He was paying such close attention to the raven-haired boy that he was severely startled when the shorter looked directly up at him, those big black eyes seeming to see into the very center of his soul. “And you? Who is — or was — your family?” 

Chanyeol didn’t allow a single muscle in his face to move — not one, for fear that the slightest movement would give him away. “I ran away from the Kims, with Jongin, when we were younger. Then at some point along the way we met Tao, and then Sehun. And that’s how we ended up here, I guess.” 

It was a lie. Chanyeol knew it, and Jongin knew it, and Tao, and Sehun — they all knew. But the boy with the black hoodie, and the black hair, and the black eyes —  _ he  _ didn’t have to know it. After all, the Kims were known to be a large, well-developed clan, so Chanyeol figured that the stranger wouldn’t question the idea of a rag-tag team of runaways escaping from the clutches of the mafia life. The likelihood of the stranger finding out about Chanyeol’s true identity was extremely low, and when compared with the price they’d have to pay if he ever  _ did  _ find out he was a Park... No, it was much safer this way, no matter the risk that came with the lie. 

And, somehow, the boy with the constellation tattoo  _ believed  _ the lie. 

“So it’s true!” he cried, excitement sweeping across his eyes and making them glint with glee. Chanyeol felt taken aback at the sudden smile that appeared on the shorter’s face, as up until that point, he had only been acquainted with a deep frown or an annoyed snarl. 

“I knew it! I knew it had to be true!” the boy was saying in a stream of barely-discernible squeaks and squeals. His hood bounced up and down on his head as he bobbed eagerly, teeth wide and gleaming in that smile of his. “I  _ knew  _ there were other clan members nearby! Kyungsoo said I was crazy for thinking so — he said anybody who tried to run away from their clan was as good as dead. But I just couldn’t believe that we were the  _ only  _ mafia around. And you’re  _ outsiders _ ! Oh my gosh, this is crazy. This is absolutely crazy. I can’t believe I’m talking to real outsiders. Do you know how long it’s been since I talked to somebody that wasn’t in my clan?” he asked, suddenly breaking through his monologue to address Sehun. 

Sehun looked panicked to be put under the spotlight so suddenly, so he just shook his head fervently, and the short boy sighed warily. “Of course you wouldn’t. You haven’t been trapped in a clan for years now, I bet. Well, I’ll tell you — it’s  _ horrible _ . There’s nothing to do except train, over and over again, and I can’t even go outside to complete missions, which is dumb, because how else am I supposed to improve my skills that I’ll need someday on real missions? But of course, Minseok and Luhan get to leave whenever they want, while I’m stuck at home, still training. Do you even realize how many hours a  _ day  _ I have to train? I have to —” 

“Please stop talking,” Chanyeol finally said, the phrase released in a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding back. He had been trying so hard to restrain himself from interrupting the short boy, but for the love of God, it was like the stranger had never had anyone to talk with. Chanyeol hadn’t asked for his life story, and the knowledge that the boy was a Wu made him care even less. What he wanted was a location — an answer to the question of where the Wu clan had been hiding out all these years. 

With the way that the black-haired boy’s bright eyes immediately darkened into distrust and indignation, Chanyeol realized that finding that answer wouldn’t be as easy as he’d initially hoped. 

Thankfully, Jongin seemed to catch onto the harm that Chanyeol had inflicted, and quickly stepped in, as an attempt to patch up some of the damage that had already been done. 

“I’m sure Chanyeol didn’t mean to interrupt you. It’s just...  _ we  _ still don’t know  _ your  _ name. And that kind of puts us at a disadvantage, don’t you think?” he reasoned in a tone coated with honey. 

Surprisingly, the mysterious boy smiled at Jongin and nodded at him. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Please forgive my rudeness.” 

Chanyeol’s head felt like a spinning top, whirling around on itself in a never-ending daze: since when did the boy get so friendly? Or rather, why did he seem to magically get along well with whoever  _ wasn’t  _ him? At the sight of the boy extending a palm to Jongin to reciprocate the attempted handshake earlier, Chanyeol figured he’d just better let his friend handle all of the diplomacy from now on. Chanyeol didn’t have the patience for that sort of thing, especially not with tiny brats like the black-haired boy. 

“I’m Baekhyun,” the said boy told them with a dainty little smile. “Of the Wu clan.”

“Did you say ‘Wu’?” Tao parroted back at him, and with the nod that came as an answer, Chanyeol was acutely aware of his three friends’ eyes trained on the side of the face. He didn’t 

dare look at them, for fear that the boy — Baekhyun — might catch the meaning behind their gazes, but he was reassured in knowing that at least his friends now knew his interest in the boy. 

“Ah. Well, um.” Sehun cleared his throat awkwardly, and Chanyeol had to resist the urge to chortle at him: the youngest member of their team had never been the smoothest at transitions. “Can we help you with something?” 

This time, it was Baekhyun who chanced a glance at Chanyeol, before returning to look at the other three males. “Actually, it was your friend here who seemed to want  _ my  _ help.” 

Tao frowned, clearly not following, and switched his gaze to the leader of their group. “Really? In what way?” 

Tired of his self-imposed silence, Chanyeol straightened his posture a bit and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I asked if he would bring us to his clan. I told him about how we’d been wanting to join a mafia for a while now, but we could never find anyone, and he offered to let us talk to his family.” 

The expressions on his friends’ faces reflected his own thoughts: a member of the Wu clan, offering to invite them into their hidden location, that they’d been searching for  _ for years _ . And the boy wasn’t just any old clan member either, based on his tattoo: he was a part of the  _ leader’s  _ family. It was just too good to be true, and Chanyeol felt his fingers twitch with anticipation. 

_ Soon _ , he reminded himself so he’d be able to calm his racing heart.  _ Soon, they’ll all be gone, and your work will be done _ . 

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Tao said, and it was only from having known the younger for years that Chanyeol was able to detect the faintest hint of giddiness in his tone. “Lead the way.” 

As the boy in the black hoodie moved towards the restaurant’s entrance, the four friends filed out in a single line after him; Chanyeol, who had to duck beneath the door’s archway so he wouldn’t hit his head, was again reminded of how small Baekhyun was when he slipped right through. Chanyeol mocked him mentally as they followed him down the street to a dingy lot, where a beat-up old pickup truck was parked. He figured it must have belonged to Baekhyun: their own car was only a short distance away, tucked behind the bushes right where they’d left it earlier. 

The four watched as Baekhyun climbed inside the driver’s seat and buckled up, continuing in his role of the oh-so-perfect human being. The smile that lit his face made Chanyeol want to spit in annoyance, but he remained silent as the grave. 

“You can follow behind me,” Baekhyun told them, his eyes flitting over to their car nearby. His gaze glistened with excitement, while the smile on his face widened with something that Chanyeol was unable to recognize. “And I hope you don’t mind — it’s a bit of a drive.” 

* * *

_ “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown, but longed for still.”  _

**PART I, chapter ii**

Baekhyun hadn’t been kidding when he’d warned them that the journey would take a little while. Chanyeol had been expecting a quick drive over to the Wu headquarters, but it took nearly forty-five minutes of driving through nothing but a sprawling expanse of sandpaper desert in every direction: the Arizona landscape was brutal on the boys’ red truck, the same one they’d been toting around for the last few months. It was old when they’d first stolen it, and by now it could be classified as ancient, with seatbelts that did more harm than good, and air conditioning so weak it felt hotter when it was turned on. 

As if reading his mind, Tao let out a loud groan, fanning himself futilely with his own hand. “I thought Sedona was hot, but this is just ridiculous.” 

Chanyeol chuckled at him, though he had to admit that his own hands were a bit hot on the steering wheel. 

“Chanyeol,” Tao whined as he flopped backwards on the seat and writhed around. “How much longer?” 

“Hell if I know,” muttered the oldest to himself, quickly muting his mouth when Jongin tossed him a scathing look. 

“Where is he going anyway?” Sehun questioned suspiciously as he squinted after the green truck trudging on ahead of them. Though the car was fairly far away, little puffs of smoke escaped the tailpipe every few seconds, almost like it was sending up a smoke signal to help them track its location. 

Tao spoke up again when nobody replied to the other boy’s question — nobody had thought to ask Baekhyun for a specific name of the place they were headed. “Are we even sure he knows where he’s going?” 

Annoyed by the constant questions that he didn’t have the time, energy, or knowledge to answer, Chanyeol spat back a response to the younger two. “He’s luring us far out into the desert to some remote location so he can kill us. He’s going to burn our bodies and scatter the ashes all across the desert, so we’ll be stuck here forever and nobody will ever find us.” 

Silence followed his words, until someone — Jongin — stepped in to speak up. He twisted in his seat to stare at the pair of boys in the back, and tried to soothe them with his smile. “That was a joke, guys. We’re gonna be fine.” 

“We know that,” Sehun murmured, though he didn’t talk again for the rest of the trip. At some point, they had lost sight of the green truck, but it wasn’t much longer before a glimmer of civilization surfaced: the loan paved path brought them out of the desert and melted into a slightly wider road with a sign next to it, declaring “ENTERING JEROME” and “Elevation: 5246. Founded: 1876.” 

All of their eyes spotted the sign, and Chanyeol heaved what he hoped was a light-hearted sigh. “Finally. I really thought we were going to die out there.” 

He felt Jongin’s laser beam eyes boring into him again, and cracked a grin. “Just kidding. Now let’s find that truck again.” 

His foot beared down on the gas pedal with alarming ferocity, and their rickety old red truck sped off down the road, beginning to ascend into the hills that visibly dominated the region. If he wasn’t pressed for time, Chanyeol may have lingered a while longer to admire the scenery of green-flecked mountain hills, but as it was, he continued speeding up the winding road until they caught sight of a camo-colored car creeping through the treeline. 

“There he is!” Sehun piped up, and had he not felt guilty for his joke earlier, Chanyeol would have teased him for pointing out the obvious once again. 

As the distance between the two trucks closed, the layout of Jerome became more and more apparent: a town was barely big enough to label the town, for it seemed that there was only a small cluster of buildings and streets, all of them tucked onto the side of the mountain like books resting carelessly on the steps of a staircase. 

“This place looks like a ghost town,” he heard Jongin murmur, voicing his own thoughts exactly: there was not a single soul to be spotted as they drove quietly through the town. Corroded old cars were everywhere, with many of the parts gone so that they resembled rusted corpses left to rot in their graves, only the metallic skeletons left behind. Other scraps of metal were sporadically scattered through the streets, looking as if they had been dumped there in a rush and soon forgotten. The first person that they saw — an old woman leaving a store with groceries tucked in her arms — nearly gave Chanyeol a heart attack. After that, he had expected Baekhyun to stop sometime soon, but the boy’s car had kept climbing up into the hills, so they had followed suit. 

Once they’d retreated further into the sparse gathering of trees near Jerome, Chanyeol once again found himself falling behind the green truck up ahead, and though he figured they would just catch up to Baekhyun’s car like before, he was bewildered when the road came to a dead end at the base of a bald-faced mountain. 

Chanyeol pulled the key from the ignition slowly, not saying a word as they let the car engine die. Not a single creature in the woods moved, and the four were left staring up ahead at the great slab of rock before them. 

“Where’d he go?” Sehun whispered, barely breaking the silence that had befallen them. Nobody bothered to come up with a reply, because none of them could explain how the green truck had just completely vanished off of the only road that they forest had to offer. 

Cautiously, as if he was approaching a cornered animal, Chanyeol climbed from the truck and walked towards the mountain face. He heard his friends calling after him, but his attention had already been snagged by the sight of a hole in the base of the hill: long wooden planks were boarded up half-heartedly in front of the entrance, and it would have been practically invisible among the trees’ trunks were it not for the faded placard declaring the entry as  _ The Gold King Mine.  _

Chanyeol’s curiosity was peaked now — an old mine, nestled deep into the woods of an old ghost town? It seemed like the perfect spot to find a powerful clan that wished to remain hidden. He smirked to himself as he got closer to the entrance: this was too easy. 

“Chanyeol, watch out!” 

He’d spoken too quickly it seemed, for before he knew what was happening, a pointed blade was being shoved into the side of his neck, barely pricking him but barring him from stepping any further. Though his attacker was behind him, the way it was tilted upwards was enough to let Chanyeol know how much shorter than himself the other was. 

The tall boy groaned, more from annoyance than pain. “Do you realize that this is the  _ second  _ time today that I’ve been held at knife-point by a midget?” 

His attacker didn’t seem to care at all, and instead dragged the knife closer to his skin, finally drawing blood. 

“ _ Who are you? _ ” the male hissed in a deep voice. “ _ Why are you trying to enter that mine? _ ” 

Chanyeol held up his hands in surrender; he simply wasn’t in the mood to fight today. “Truce. I mean no harm.” 

“Really? Then why are you gripping that gun in your pocket so tightly?” Chanyeol gasped — he had been caught. Nobody, not in the past ten years, had  _ ever  _ been able to detect the small, subtle movements he made pre-battle, except for this stranger. 

“Drop it on the ground,” the deep-voiced male ordered in a voice so compelling and threatening that Chanyeol truly had no choice but to comply. He retrieved the gun from his pocket and let it fall to the ground with a pitiful thud. He felt his captor glance down at it and huff. “ _ Both of them _ .” 

Damn it. This guy was good. With an exaggerated sigh, Chanyeol plucked his other gun — his favorite one — from his left pocket, and dropped it as well, already mourning the familiar weight of his trusty handguns. Without them, he was reduced to a single blade — which was strapped in a place where the sun didn’t shine — and his two fists. 

“Alright, fine.  _ Now  _ I mean no harm.” He heard a disbelieving snort from the other person. 

“Right, because a random group of outsiders always likes to hang around old mines like this one.” 

The sarcasm in his tone was evident, but the word he’d used —  _ outsiders  _ — was a phrase odd and familiar enough to make Chanyeol perk up. “Wait, are you friends with Baekhyun?” 

At the boy’s name, Chanyeol’s captor seemed to stiffen, his posture become more rigid against the taller’s back. “How do you know him?” 

“He’s my wife,” Chanyeol replied sarcastically, not thinking it through until after the shorter male had risen the knife, as if he meant to strike. 

“ _ Wait, wait, wait! _ ” The voice that broke through the grove of trees was music to Chanyeol’s ears, and at the sight of the boy in the black hoodie entering his line of vision, a deep growl began in the back of his throat. “ _ Baekhyun _ . Where the hell did you go?” 

“I’m sorry, I had to pee!” apologized the shorter as he scrambled over a large tree trunk blocking his path and made his way over to the two of them. He looked breathless, eyes blown wide with panic, as if he was convinced Chanyeol had been about to die; the taller didn’t feel like telling him he easily could have escaped the clutches of the boy behind him. 

“Baekhyun,” the said-male began sternly, “do you know this person?” 

The tiny boy bit his lip, eyes glancing over to gauge Chanyeol’s expression. The taller, not sure why he was hesitating, motioned for him to explain, and the boy sighed. 

“Yes, I do. So,” Baekhyun went on, eyes still focused on the knife digging into Chanyeol’s neck, “if you could just let him go...” 

“Oh. Right.” The gruff voice grunted once before releasing Chanyeol, who tried not to immediately grasp at his neck; he hadn’t realized how much the tight hold had been cutting off his air supply. He turned to look at the person that had wielded so much strength, and was surprised to see a fairly soft-looking boy, somewhere around his age, standing there. His eyes were big and dark, similar to Baekhyun’s, but their faces held no resemblance aside from that. Where Baekhyun was thin and wiry like a sparrow, this boy was thick-boned and tan. He was dressed in all black like Baekhyun too, though he was covered in head to toe with a vast array of weaponry, almost as if he was a soldier headed off to combat at any moment. 

“Who the hell are you?” Chanyeol bluntly asked the boy, still somewhat annoyed by the vice-like grip he’d held him in earlier. He really needed to start monitoring his words a bit more. 

“I should be asking you the same,” the boy shot back with a scowl. Thankfully, Baekhyun thought to intervene between the two. He stepped between them, eyes flitting back and forth anxiously. “Kyungsoo, this is Chanyeol. He’s from the Kim clan.” 

“A Kim?” A pair of dark, furrowed eyebrows shot upwards. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?” 

“I don’t have a home,” Chanyeol couldn’t help but spit out, grateful for the natural bitterness that made his story seem more convincing. 

“He’s a runaway,” added Baekhyun. He bit his lip again. “He was wondering if he could join our clan.” 

Up until that point, and much to the anxiety of Chanyeol, Kyungsoo had been busy stowing away Chanyeol’s confiscated handguns into his satchel, and his foreboding gaze quickly shot to the short boy beside him, eyes widening to the size of saucers. “You brought an  _ outsider  _ to join our clan? Baekhyun! What were you thinking?” 

Baekhyun worried his lower lip once more. Chanyeol briefly wondered if it was a normal habit of his, or if he was just particularly nervous in this moment. It didn’t exactly seem like Baekhyun bringing him here was according to protocol, after all. 

The boy in the black hoodie was saved from having to answer, however, by the sound of a car door being thrown open and slammed shut shortly afterwards. The three of them turned to see Jongin, Tao, and Sehun spilling out from the truck where they’d been cowering up until then.  _ Some friends _ , Chanyeol couldn’t help but think to himself, as they approached him and the two members of the Wu clan. 

“Hey, Chanyeol!” Sehun called, squinting his eyes to try to make out the new person that stood by his side. “Are we going inside or not? Cause I really need to take a piss...” 

Kyungsoo’s head whipped around to once again face Baekhyun, and his tiny hands balled up into little fists that were no doubt deadlier than they seemed. “There’s  _ more  _ of them?” 

A nervous little laugh escaped the Wu child, and Chanyeol almost felt sorry for Baekhyun. Almost. 

“Yeah, well, I promised I would take them if... If...” The frown lines on Kyungsoo’s face only deepened. “If what?” 

Seeing his chance for revenge beginning to get washed down the drain, Chanyeol  _ had  _ to step in to save the situation: this moment, this golden opportunity, was all he had left in the world. “If we saved him from a group of bikers.” 

As if offended that Chanyeol was even speaking to him, Kyungsoo sighed heavily.

“What?”

The taller was ready to add onto his light fib, but was interrupted by Baekhyun before he  even had to try: “There was a gang of bikers, and they were swarming around me. I was trapped, and I thought I was going to die. There were so many of them! There were, um —” 

“Fifty?” Chanyeol offered with a wry smile. Baekhyun quickly nodded. 

“ _ Fifty  _ bikers! And they were  _ huge!  _ And they had a whole bunch of muscles, and they were covered in tattoos, and they had guns, and —” He paused long enough to send Kyungsoo an imploring look, complete with a pouting lower lip and big blinking eyes. “And then these four saved me. Later I found out where they were from, and that they needed a clan, so...” 

“So you decided it was a good idea to let them into ours?” Kyungsoo let loose another weary sigh. Chanyeol had to wonder if he wasn’t a middle-aged man trapped inside of a teenager’s body. “Baekhyun, we’re in enough trouble as it is. We barely have the resources to take care of our  _ own  _ clan members, and with Lee Sooman beginning to attack again... We just can’t afford to take in anybody else.” 

Chanyeol was forced to watch as Kyungsoo grabbed Baekhyun by the wrist and began to lead him towards the cave entrance, his heart sinking at the thought that every step those two took away from him and his friends, the further his hopes for revenge retreated. (Not to mention, that guy Kyungsoo had his two favorite guns!) He couldn’t let it end like this. Not after everything he’d worked so hard for. 

“Wait a minute,” he called after them. Kyungsoo stopped walking, and Baekhyun turned his neck to look at him, cautious hope coating his features. Gears whirring as fast as his brain would allow them to, Chanyeol stepped forward and gestured at himself first, then his friends. “Let us work for you. We’ll do anything you ask.” 

Sehun, who stood slightly behind him, stared at him in shock. “We  _ will? _ ” Chanyeol ignored him. 

“We can be your servants, or your bodyguards, or whatever you need. We’re all strong, and fairly big, so we can fight for you if that’s what you want. It doesn’t matter, because we’ll do it.” 

Suspicion was the only emotion on Kyungsoo’s face when he turned to look at the taller boy. “Why do you want to join our clan so badly? Why not just go on being nomads like you have been?” 

The muscles in Chanyeol’s throat constricted, and his fingers slowly curled into fists. “We’re tired of running.” 

The boy didn’t know what he had been expecting Kyungsoo to say to that, but the shorter revealed none of his emotions; he just remained silent and glided like a moth towards Chanyeol. The taller forced himself to be still under the boy’s watchful gaze as the other stared up at his face, eyes narrowed like he was searching for something. 

“What did you say your name was?” he murmured, so quiet that Chanyeol was certain he was the only one to hear it. 

He gulped, unsure of why the question made him nervous. “Chanyeol. Kim Chanyeol.” 

“Hmm.” The skepticism didn’t disappear from his eyes just yet. “And how did you meet Baekhyun in a remote town like Jerome?” 

Chanyeol opened his mouth to reply, but was beaten by Tao, who spoke up from behind him with the same naive eagerness as always. “Oh, we didn’t meet Baekhyun here! It was in Sedona, at a restaurant.” 

Over Kyungsoo’s head, Chanyeol was able to watch Baekhyun futilely trying to silence Tao, arms flapping and hands waving about like a frantic bird, but the younger didn’t see him until it was all said and done. Chanyeol supposed that the boy in the black hoodie had, again, done something he wasn’t supposed to, because the dread on his face as Kyungsoo turned to gape at him was painfully obvious. 

“ _ You went to Sedona?! _ ” the bushy-browed boy cried in disbelief. Chanyeol wanted to laugh at the vein throbbing on his forehead, but felt that it wouldn’t be appropriate in a life-or-death situation like this. “Baekhyun! What is wrong with you?” 

Baekhyun visibly winced at the words. “I’m sorry, okay?” Kyungsoo rubbed at his eyes with his fingertips as his frustration grew. 

“ _ No _ , it is  _ not  _ okay. You can’t keep sneaking out like this. This is the third time this month!” 

The raven-haired boy couldn’t seem to meet the eyes of anyone in the cluster. His foot kicked the dirt, making him look like a small child being scolded. “I know, but...” 

“‘But’ nothing. It’s too dangerous for you, Baekhyun, you know that.” Kyungsoo groaned in agony, shaking his head back and forth like he just couldn’t believe it. “We’ll talk about this more later, when Junmyeon gets — oh my god, Junmyeon is going to  _ kill  _ me when he finds out.” 

“When he finds out what?” The appearance of more people seemed like the last thing that the little group needed in order to solve its problems, but the pair of young men approached them nonetheless. They emerged from the grove of trees nearby as naturally as wood nymphs, with looks to match: one was a little on the short side, though he made up for it with his severe eyes and bulging muscles, which were contradicted only by the youthfulness of his chubby cheeks. In his hand he gripped a gun that was easily the size of Chanyeol’s entire leg, and he had to resist the urge to retreat from it when he saw the other man swinging it so carelessly. However, he didn’t seem to be a threat, nor did the male by his side, whom Chanyeol observed with just as much scrutiny as the first. 

The second male was taller, and a bit thinner, than his partner, with fluffy brown hair a shade lighter than Jongin’s. His eyes were surprisingly big and bright with a sort of childlike wonder, and he had a face boyish enough to pass for someone younger than Chanyeol, though he somehow suspected the brunet was several years older. 

There was nothing particularly off-setting or peculiar about the pair, really — except for the cane that was clutched in the second man’s hand. 

Chanyeol’s eyes boggled at the sight — this had to another one of the Wu sons. Though it had been ten years since the Accords, his memories from that time were as vivid as the day they had first been created: nothing would ever be able to erase the eerie click-clack of the 

young boy’s cane on the marble floor, or the image of him running from the meeting hall within a minute of the explosion that had killed his family. 

Rage began bubbling inside of the tall boy, tinting his vision red that rid the blind male of any sympathy Chanyeol might have felt for him: that man had escaped, along with the rest of his family, while the other clans had been forced to fight for their lives against the fire.  _ They  _ were responsible for the deaths of Chanyeol’s parents and siblings, he just knew it: those damn Wus were all to blame. 

“Luhan!” he heard Baekhyun call as the blind man finally met them, his companion never leaving his side. A smile crossed the brunet’s face, despite not being able to see any of them. 

“Baekhyun. Kyungsoo,” the man greeted with a smile, nodding his head at each of them. Chanyeol was astounded: how could he have known where they were if he was unable to see them? 

Luhan continued, not yet taking note of Chanyeol and his friends. “Now, Hyun, what have you done this time?” It was spoken without reprimation, but Baekhyun still had the decency to look bashful. He glanced to Kyungsoo, as if begging for help, but the other refused it with a simple shake of his head. 

“Well?” Luhan, as he was called, said when nobody answered him. His smile was playful enough, though the spaced-out look in his eyes made him seem a bit mystical. He turned to the muscular man by his side, grin splitting even wider. “Minseok, I’m afraid we may have just interrupted a very awkward conversation.” 

Without replying to the comment, the man with the gun leaned over to whisper something in Luhan’s ear. The blind male leaned in expectantly, and though his smile didn’t fade, it did falter ever so slightly. Chanyeol had enough experience in reading people’s expressions to figure that Minseok had just filled in him that they had a few unknown people present — namely, himself. 

“Why don’t you introduce yourselves?” Luhan said when Minseok was done, and then, much to Chanyeol’s disbelief, the male turned his head so that it seemed as if he was staring directly at him. His eyes were pitch black like Baekhyun’s, but while the younger boy’s eyes made it seem like sparks of energy were being created inside, Luhan’s were soulless, spaceless abysses. 

“Uh, hello,” began Chanyeol, somewhat awkwardly. He didn’t know if it was proper  etiquette to keep looking at Luhan’s eyes while he spoke, or if that would be considered rude, so he just directed his attention to Minseok instead. “I’m Chanyeol, and this is Jongin. We’re both Kims,” he explained, now having perfected the excuse. “And that’s Oh Sehun and Huang Zitao.” 

“They’re runaways that Baekhyun picked up in Sedona,” Kyungsoo interrupted in a no-nonsense tone of voice. “They want to know if they can join our clan.” 

“Oh really?” For some reason, Luhan didn’t seem to be that surprised, and he retained the same lovely smile as earlier. Minseok, however, tilted his head to the side as Chanyeol spoke, as if perplexed by something he’d said, but he remained silent nonetheless. 

“Well there’s no use standing around in the open out here,” Luhan laughed, and he began teetering forward with his cane, somehow able to predict the exact location of the boarded-up mine entrance. He tapped a beam overhead ten times in a complex little pattern, and the boards swung open like a door, revealing a guard who had been waiting inside. Beyond 

that, the tunnel seemed to be pitch black, stretching on for eternity: it rather reminded Chanyeol of Baekhyun’s eyes, as silly as it was. 

Kyungsoo passed through the entrance first, and then it was Chanyeol who was nearest to Luhan and the entrance; though it seemed that the older was waiting on him, he hesitated when the male gestured with his stick for him to proceed first. Sensing the boy’s reluctance, another amused smile graced Luhan’s features, and he chuckled lightly. “Go on. Trust me, nobody wants to get stuck behind a slow blind guy in tunnels like these.” 

Luhan was a Wu, and for that Chanyeol despised him, and he always would. But he was still a boy who could appreciate a good sense of humor, so he didn’t try to hold back the grin that spread over his lips. So, taking Luhan’s advice, Chanyeol forged ahead into the darkness. His hands reached out instinctively on either side to steady himself once his feet encountered the rough, uneven path before him: the walls were made of dirt closer to the entrance, but as he and the people behind him descended further into the mountain, the earth was replaced by a smooth concrete corridor with linoleum floors. Lights flickered on automatically when they reached this portion, and Chanyeol couldn’t help but shoot a questioning gaze over his shoulder at Baekhyun, who he somehow knew would be right behind him. 

The shorter shrugged, a small smile tugging at his face. “We have to make the entrance look dangerous and scary, or else we might have a bunch of random drunks trying to break in at three in the morning.” 

“Makes sense,” Chanyeol admitted as he listened to their feet hitting the clean tiles, on which their dirt-caked shoes left streaks of mud behind. He caught Baekhyun watching the grime build up too, and forced himself to smile at him. “I said I’d do anything to become part of your clan, so if you need a janitor to clean up this mess, you know where to find me.” 

The boy’s big black eyes crinkled with amusement, and Chanyeol was startled by the way the tinkling sound bounced off the walls of the hallway. All the same, he couldn’t help but smile — and this time it was genuine. 

Up ahead, Kyungsoo finally came to a halt. His black clothes were a stark contrast against the white air-lock door in front of him, but the red beams of light that sprang up to scan his hand offered another color to the palette. 

Watching in reluctant amazement as the short boy went about his business, Chanyeol couldn’t help leaning over to whisper to Baekhyung: “Is that sort of stuff real?” 

Baekhyun turned to him with furrowed eyebrows. “What do you mean?” “Like, scanning your handprint, or your eyes to check your identity. I thought that kind of thing was only in spy movies.” 

“Oh.” Baekhyun turned away from him again, a frown on his face now. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen a movie before.” 

Chanyeol was certain he’d heard incorrectly, but the brunet boy remained stoic. “You —  _ what?  _ Never? How have you even lived?” 

He had meant only to tease, and yet Baekhyun seemed to take the comment to heart, for a sad little smile soon took the place of his frown. “I’m not sure that I have.” 

Had Baekhyun not been a Wu, and had Chanyeol actually given a damn about the other boy’s life, he may have inquired just what he meant by that. But Baekhyun  _ was  _ a Wu, 

Chanyeol’s mortal enemy, and as such, had no place of importance in his life other than as another brick that would eventually topple with the rest of the tower built by the clan’s empire. 

The door that Kyungsoo had been gaining access to opened with a hiss, reminding Chanyeol of the spaceships found in the alien movies he and his father used to watch together. He probably would have smiled at the memory, but all of his thoughts were nabbed from his mind by the immense sight that rose up before him. 

Stepping through the door revealed a whole underground world, a massive chamber carved out of the center of the mountain: the ceiling was so high up that Chanyeol couldn’t even spot it, and the walls seemed to expand outwards forever. A whole town had somehow managed to fit inside the cavern, with buildings several stories tall fitting easily amongst the stagnates hanging overhead like bats. Houses were seated in neat little rows around the perimeter of the quaint village, with a bustling hub featuring shops, a school, and a church in the center, and if it weren’t for the notable lack of the sun and the sky, anyone could have been fooled into believing that the white picket fences and cobblestone walkways were part of a typical rural community. 

“This is amazing,” he heard Jongin whisper next to him, and he was grateful that someone else had decided to say what he was thinking. 

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” A young man a few steps away saw Chanyeol and his friends gaping around them like fish out of water, and he strode towards them with a laugh already bubbling up out of him. “You must be outsiders. How do you like our humble little home?” 

Chanyeol was mildly surprised: this guy was the first to learn the fact that they were “outsiders” without freaking out about it. His smile was easygoing, as was the way he stood leaning on one leg more than the other, and Chanyeol quickly decided that if this boy weren’t involved with the Wu clan, he would like to hold a conversation with him — about anything, everything, or nothing. 

Flashing another friendly smile at the troupe of newcomers, the boy — who had dark hair that wrapped around his head in a wild wash of waves — saddled up between Chanyeol and Jongin and slung an arm over each male’s shoulder. 

“You see up there?” He pointed overhead at the ceiling, where a faint light spilled out over the town below. “We’ve got artificial lighting that monitors the condition of the sky outside, and then replicates it in here. It’s like a fake sky, minus the rain and snow.” The male, who still hadn’t even offered his name to them, threw his head back and laughed. “But then again, we’re smack-dab in the middle of Arizona, and it  _ never  _ rains here.” 

His words barely hit Chanyeol’s ears, as the taller was still gazing up at the ceiling. He was mesmerized by the prospect of a sky that could reproduce the same light as was found outside, and with the soft light leaking in from some discernible source, he was briefly reminded of a road-side attraction he and his father had once visited: an underground house in Paradise, Nevada. His father had taken him there once for a weekend trip, and the young Park child had been mind-blown by the sunlight and plants that had existed even under the surface. It hadn’t been until he was older and grown that he realized there was no magic involved: only simple wiring and insulation. 

“Quit boring our guests, Jongdae,” Luhan said with a laugh as he finally stepped through the elevated door, the last in the line to do so. 

The boy named Jongdae pouted and let out a  _ harrumph _ . “I can’t help wanting to brag about my invention to everyone I meet! This much genius just needs to be shared.” 

Next to Chanyeol, Tao sucked in a breath, his dark-ringed eyes enlarging to an impossible size. “ _ You  _ made this?” The younger gazed around him once more in disbelief, mouth just as wide as his eyes. “This is incredible.” 

Pleased to have someone listening to him, Jongdae smiled and nodded proudly. “It is, isn’t it?” 

For some reason, Tao’s rapture with the place rubbed Chanyeol the wrong way: they  didn’t come here to sight-see or admire the architecture. They were here to  _ eliminate  _ these people and make them pay for all the harm they’d caused them. Over the past ten years, Chanyeol and his friends had been forced to leave behind everything that they’d known — friends, families, homes — to wander the countryside in an endless escape from their pursuers; meanwhile, Baekhyun, Jongdae, Luhan, and all the rest of the Wu clan had been content in their precious cavern, with its advanced lighting, its cozy little homes, and its isolation from the destruction of the outside world. It was a thought that made Chanyeol boil with rage and bitterness, to the point that he had to squeeze his fingers into tight fists so he wouldn’t act on his urges at that moment. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Jongin asked in a whispered voice when Jongdae went over to speak to Luhan, buying them a moment of reprieve. He placed a hand on the taller’s shoulder to keep him from swaying. “You look like you’re going to be sick.” 

Chanyeol chided himself mentally for showing weakness — he was supposed to present a strong image to everyone, including his friends, and any signs of distress that he showed now could potentially endanger their mission. So he forced himself to relax and take a deep breath, a natural-looking smile appearing on his face to mask his fury. “I’m fine.” 

Jongin looked at him with skepticism etched across his features; it was clear the other didn’t believe him, but before he could say anything more, Luhan wrapped up his conversation with Jongdae and went to stand in front of the small gathered group, Minseok by his side to guide him to the proper place. The light-haired male tapped his stick once to grab their attention, and then leaned on it casually like it was a walking cane. 

“Jongdae tells me that our leaders aren’t home yet, because they went out on a recon mission.” His usually-smiling face wore a frown of concern, yet his voice remained stable. “It seems that there was an attack on the Kang clan nearby.” 

A light little gasp was heard from Baekhyun, and Chanyeol couldn’t help but turn to stare down at the shorter boy, whose worry was evident on his face. “Oh god, what happened?” 

Jongdae took over for Luhan to speak now, hands clasped in front of him. “We received news about an hour or so before you got here, and they left immediately afterwards.” 

“Are they alright?” Kyungsoo asked in a deep voice that held the slightest of tremors. Chanyeol was mildly surprised: he wouldn’t have expected the cold-faced boy to care much about anyone except himself. 

In response, Jongdae just shook his head. “We’re not sure. We lost contact with them about an hour ago, and now all we know is that they’re headed towards Las Vegas to look for survivors.” 

Chanyeol felt rather odd and detached from the whole situation: he could tell that the members of the Wu clan were in distress at the thought that their leaders might be in danger, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care about how they felt. They were merely experiencing a fraction of the pain he and his friends had suffered, after all. 

“Do you think they’ll be alright?” Baekhyun suddenly wondered aloud, sounding a little breathless. Luhan smiled and reached towards the sound of the boy’s younger voice so he could place a hand on his shoulder. 

“They’ll be fine, Hyun, don’t worry.” He squeezed his younger brother’s shoulder, offering him a reassuring smile before turning to where Chanyeol and his friends were. The tall boy had to repress a shudder — he didn’t know if he’d ever get used to that. “I’m sorry to the rest of you: this isn’t much of a welcome, I know, but I hope you’ll understand.” 

Chanyeol didn’t expect any of his friends to say anything, but he was reasonably shocked when Sehun, of all people, nodded eagerly and spoke up: “Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine.”  He tried to catch the younger boy’s eye, but Sehun wouldn’t look at him. Chanyeol  reminded himself that they were supposed to be playing the parts of exhausted, pathetic vagabonds, and had to mentally praise Sehun for his convincing acting skills. 

“Thank you,” Luhan smiled in response. He gestured to Jongdae beside him, who was rocking back and forth on his heels, as if all this conversational talk was boring him immensely. “For now, Jongdae here will escort you to your rooms. This is nothing permanent, but we’re not so cold-hearted that we would turn you away right now, especially with all of the attacks,” he added with a subtle wince. He gripped his cane harder, Chanyeol saw, but restored his features to their lovely countenance. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to attend to.” 

He bowed his head at them gently before grabbing onto the outstretched offered by Minseok, whom Chanyeol had almost entirely forgotten about up until then. The older man was just so silent, with the exception of the whispers that he exchanged with Luhan. As the pair slowly edged away, Chanyeol couldn’t help but stare, his thoughts leaving with them as he wondered what exactly their relationship was like. 

“Well, you heard the man!” Jongdae suddenly spoke up, sounding almost giddy. His grin was back and seemed to exterminate all unpleasant thoughts of the outside world. Swinging his hands onto his hips like some experienced tour guide, he gestured for them to follow after him, and broke into a jaunty step. “Right this way!” 

For the first time in his life of long-legged luxury, Chanyeol struggled to keep up with the spry little male. When he glanced back once, it seemed as though his friends were experiencing the same troubles as him, even though all of them stood easily over six feet tall. Far behind them, the midget-like Baekhyun and Kyungsoo were in a full-on  _ sprint  _ to keep up. 

_ Steroids _ , Chanyeol concluded decisively as he continued to jog after Jongdae up ahead, the cobblestones threatening to trip him multiple times.  _ It’s got to be steroids _ . 

They received no star-studded tour like Chanyeol had been anticipating, and were instead led (more like  _ dragged _ ) to a big brick building at the end of one curved street. Ivy snaked across its facade in gallant stretches, with some of the vines even having conquered the metal fire escapes that snuck down the side in a precarious zig-zag. There were no windows, at least from where Chanyeol stood, and there seemed to be nobody coming in or out of it. The 

door that they stepped up to and Jongdae struck with a knock was made of some dark wood, like oak or mahogany, and it was opened shortly thereafter by a handsome male in a white button-up shirt. The man had droopy-looking eyes that made it hard for Chanyeol to discern his age, but his gaze quickly bright when he registered Jongdae before him. 

“Any news?” he asked instantly. The eagerness in his tone was palpable and painful to hear. 

“Uh, no. Not yet.” At Jongdae’s words, the man visibly deflated, though he forced him to perk back up again when he caught sight of Chanyeol and the others standing behind the energetic boy. 

“Oh! Who...?” As if he’d forgotten about their existence, Jongdae turned in confusion to peer at the group of males gathered on the steps in front of the building. He snapped his fingers at the recollection of why they were there, and turned back to the man. 

“Yixing, these are our guests. They came from...” He turned back around to face them once more. “Where did you say you were from?” 

Technically, the four of them hadn’t yet elaborated where they were originally from, but Chanyeol feared that if he relented the fact that his family was Phoenix, they would immediately connect him to the headquarters of the Park clan that had been located there. 

“We met Baekhyun in Sedona,” he blurted before the mounting silence could become any more suspicious. 

From out the corner of his eye, Chanyeol was able to spot the way Baekhyun glared at him, clearly feeling betrayed, but he ignored him. After all, the boy was a stranger and an enemy to him: what did he care if he got in trouble? Not his problem. 

Collective gasps escaped both Jongdae and Yixing, while Kyungsoo turned his laser-like gaze onto Baekhyun. It was amusing to watch the overly-confident boy shrink into his hoodie, as if that would save him from the other boys’ wrath. 

“ _ Sedona?”  _ Yixing turned his gaze back to Jongdae, and Chanyeol wondered why the older didn’t bother addressing Baekhyun, but then decided he didn’t care. “Does Junmyeon know about this?” 

The other shook his head. “Not yet. And given the current situation, I don’t think he should find out until he and Yifan get back.” 

Exhaling slowly, Yixing nodded. “You’re right. Like always,” he added with a small dimpled smile. Now, he fixed his gaze on Chanyeol and his friends with an even warmer smile. “In that case, why don’t you gentlemen follow me? If you came here all the way from Sedona, then I’m sure you must be exhausted.” 

Chanyeol didn’t feel like denying his condition — it was true, after all. Even since before their run-in with Baekhyun and the bikers back in Sedona, he and his friends had gone nearly two days without sleep, and were simply too tuckered out to travel anywhere else. 

So it was without any pretense of protesting that Chanyeol led his friends after Jongdae as the other stepped into the building, Yixing holding the door wide open for him. The smile the dimpled man flashed him as he walked into the house looked horribly genuine, which was a bit freaky for Chanyeol. Nonetheless, he followed the pair as they ambled down a long hallway off 

the main foyer. Framed pictures lined the walls, each depicting what looked like a group of people, though the lighting in the corridor was too dim for Chanyeol to make out their faces. 

The portraits were long forgotten as they entered into another room that was circular in shape, and contained nothing else but a few evenly-spaced doors — six of them, according to Chanyeol’s count. Kyungsoo glided past the four outsiders and Yixing to enter one of the rooms closer to the middle and disappeared inside, satchel in tow. Chanyeol’s pining gaze followed the bag, yearning for his beloved revolver and pistol that were still stashed away in there. 

Meanwhile, Yixing led the way over to the one closest to them on the end, and pulled out a massive ring of keys to open it. Chanyeol couldn’t help but gawk in awe at the impressive hoop, which must have been weighed down by at least a hundred keys. How Yixing ever found the one to unlock the door, the tall boy would never know, but he did it in record time and gestured for them to peek inside. 

“This is one of our available rooms.” He kept the door open, but pointed to the opposite side, at the other door stuck on the end. “And that is our other one.” 

“We get bedrooms?” Tao questioned, and Chanyeol wanted to wring the curiosity from his friend’s voice: they were just rooms, not some grand favor the Wus were doing for them. 

Yixing, on the other hand, nodded enthusiastically at the boy. “Of course! You are our guests. But you’ll have to forgive us: we only have six rooms in the training center, and four of them are already occupied, so two of you will have to share a room.” 

“We get to be roommates!” Chanyeol heard Sehun squeal to Tao, and though he wanted to roll his eyes in disgust at the younger’s excitement, something else Yixing had said snagged his attention. 

“Did you say training center?” He felt his friends’ eyes glide to his face in surprise, but Yixing just smiled pleasantly at him like it was an ordinary question. “Yes. This building is fully equipped with living quarters, a medical attention center (that’s where I work), bathrooms, and a dining hall, but it is also part of our training facility, where we frequently send our younger members to learn about the skills they need for the future.” 

Chanyeol raised his eyebrows. “Such as?” “Combat techniques, mostly, like defensive fighting and attack strategies, but also things that they might need in the outside world, like tracking and survival skills,” Jongdae hopped in to explain with a proud smile. 

“Why do we learn those skills anyway?” a voice cut in bitterly, and when Chanyeol turned to see who had spoken, he was stunned to find that it was Baekhyun, who he truthfully had forgotten was still standing there. The dark-haired boy held a sour countenance, something similar to anger flickering behind his big eyes, and his tiny little hands were balled into fists by his side as he sniffed. “Why does it matter if we learn about the outside world, if we’re never allowed to leave the Cave anyway?” 

Jongdae looked extremely uncomfortable with the question that was targeted at him, though Yixing quickly stepped in to scold Baekhyun: “Hyun! Why would you say something like that?” 

“Well, am I wrong?” The boy with the raven hair huffed. “The only ones who ever get to do anything are Luhan and Minseok because they’re the oldest, but the rest of us have been training for years, and we never get to use our skills for anything!” 

Yixing had an instant response ready, and he edged closer to the boy with a hand extended, as if trying to calm him. “That’s not true, Hyun.” 

The younger boy let out a humorless laugh. “It’s not? Then why are we all here right now, and our parents are the ones trying to find survivors from the attack?” 

_ Our parents?  _ Chanyeol ran the words over in his mind for a moment, then realized that he meant Junmyeon and Yifan — if that was the case, then was Yixing Baekhyun’s older brother? An image of a brown-haired boy and his family being escorted from the meeting hall suddenly materialized in Chanyeol’s brain. 

_ This  _ must be that middle son, he realized while staring at Yixing and matching up his eyes to the ones he’d seen ten years ago, the second Wu child. Even Yixing, with his dimpled smiles and kind eyes, would be feeling his revenge. 

When the wave of intolerable silence began to wash over the group, the sound of a door creaking open interrupted the sensation. Chanyeol watched as Kyungsoo exited his room — no bag accompanying him, this time — and wordlessly grabbed the arm of the snuffling boy beside him, escorting him out of the room; his eyes couldn’t help but follow their movements. 

He heard Jongdae awkwardly clear his throat and say, “I guess that’s enough excitement for you all today. Feel free to settle into your rooms for now. Dinner will be served in a few hours. Until then, get some rest.” 

Chanyeol was faintly aware of Yixing and Jongdae disappearing into their respective rooms — located side by side in the center — yet he paid them no mind; his feet carried him where his mind was, back down the hallway and into the main foyer where they’d first entered. When he heard the sound of crying floating from that direction, he peeked his head around the corner and tried to remain still as he saw Baekhyun standing there with Kyungsoo. The shorter male had his arms wrapped around Baekhyun in a bear-like hug while the raven-haired boy sobbed on his shoulder, incomprehensible words spilling from his mouth. 

“I know, I know,” Kyungsoo told him with a gentle series of pats on his back. “But you know it’s for your own good.” 

Another cry ripped from Baekhyun’s throat, sounding broken and battered. It was a strange contrast from the prideful image of the boy that Chanyeol had possessed up until that moment. He figured, from the soft words and tender touches that they exchanged, that the two boys must be very close friends. Maybe even more than that. 

“I never meant for this to happen,” he thought he heard Baekhyun murmur once his sobs had subsided somewhat. “Maybe if I had just —” 

“No,” Kyungsoo quickly shut down whatever he was going to say, which only heightened Chanyeol’s interest. “Baekhyun, there’s nothing you could have done. It’s not your fault.” 

Every ounce of curiosity in the tall boy listening nearby was being pricked, but he heard someone approaching from the opposite direction, and knew that his window of eavesdropping was closing. He only glanced once more over his shoulder at the crying boy and his comforting companion before slipping away, Baekhyun’s cries following closely behind. 

_ At some point, Chanyeol must have fallen asleep. He was coaxed into the Land of Nod by the gentle yet firm hand of Sleep, who insisted that he be lulled by the intoxicating melody that She sang. The boy knew better than to try resisting Her: he couldn’t, and he didn’t want to, so he followed Her along a cobblestone street gilded by clouds, strewn out in front of him in as solid of a path as any other. She held his hand until they arrived at the end of the path of clouds, at which point She urged him to go forward.  _

_ He listened to Her, and stepped closer to the edge to peer over the side. Rain started to fall from the sky. Little droplets, being plucked from the air, only to grow into bigger drops.  _

_ Chanyeol looked closer: the drops of water were actually birds, black and blue and red, of all shapes and sizes. They were flying through the sky with an ease that Chanyeol envied, but he still smiled because it was a beautiful sight.  _

_ Then the birds transformed and stretched and curled until they were no longer birds at all, but people: human beings, who instead of flying were dropping out of the sky and plummeting towards the ground thousands of feet below.  _

_ Oddly enough, Chanyeol could only stare in disconnected wonder at the people who fell. When he looked at their faces, he was surprised to see that he knew some of them. His gaze fell onto a broad man with a strong jaw and equally strong eyes, who was falling down without complaint: it was his father, with his eyes glazed over, like frost. Nearby, Chanyeol spotted Jongin, the tan boy looking like a real angel as he descended from the heavens. He looked to the left: there was Sehun, right next to his oldest sister, who he recalled had been instantly killed in the explosion. She still wore her hair in a dainty pink ribbon, which flapped like a pair of wild wings in the wind.  _

_ And there was his mother, a few feet below him. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. But then both she and her smile were fading away, getting further and further and further, falling, falling, down, down, down, down, down, down....  _

The clanging dinner bell in the distance was a slap against Chanyeol’s cheek, but one that he was grateful for — sweat was still dripping down his body, hands still shaking, by the time he slipped on a sweatshirt and prepared to go eat. Jongin was waiting on him, and so the older poured everything into preventing his fingers from trembling as he tied his shoes, hoping that his friend wouldn’t notice. 

But Jongin noticed everything. “Hey,” he said to Chanyeol after observing him for a moment with eagle eyes, “are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” the curly-haired boy immediately replied in what he hoped was a nonchalant tone. He stood up to walk out the door, but his friend caught him by the arm. He must have felt the tremors traveling down Chanyeol’s body, because he blinked at him with big, worried eyes. 

“Chan, you’re shaking! What happened?” “Nothing, Jongin, nothing. I’m fine.” He couldn’t even look the other in the eye: he was too afraid he would see the image from his dream again, the image of Jongin dropping from the 

sky and looking far too dead for the boy who was standing right here talking to him. It made his stomach hurt just thinking about it, and suddenly dinner didn’t sound too appealing, despite not having eaten for nearly half a day. 

Once again, he wasn’t able to school his expression before Jongin noticed, and the tan male shook his head in disapproval. “No, you’re not. You look sick, even worse than you did earlier.” He frowned thoughtfully, looking much more like a mother hen than he probably would have cared to hear. “I think you should stay in here for a while and rest up. A few more hours of sleep won’t kill you.” 

Chanyeol didn’t even have time to protest — because truthfully, the thought of being all alone by himself in this barren dorm-like room was spooky — before Jongin had vanished and shut the door behind himself decisively. 

The tall boy released a sigh of exhaustion, as if he hadn’t just slept for several hours. All things considered, he felt just fine: his nausea had dissipated, his fatigue faded away. The only sign of his distress was the cold sweat that was still plastered against his skin like a layer of film on the surface of a pond. 

A timid knock sounded at the door, and Chanyeol stood up with a groan. It was probably Jongin, back because he’d forgotten something or wanted to change clothes. He pried open the door and swung it open, surprised when there was nobody standing on the other side. 

Cautiously, the boy stepped out into the hall, wondering if he’d misheard and mistaken a knock for something else, like pipes groaning or floorboards creaking. This building looked a little on the old side anyway, so it wouldn’t have surprised him. 

Suddenly, a black shape leapt out from the shadows at him with a banshee-like shriek — he stumbled backwards, hands up to shield himself from the horrid creature, and ended up cowering on the floor in fear. 

His hands slowly sank away from his face when he heard the sound of laughter bouncing around the hallway, a light tinkling lilt that made him scowl before he even saw the person’s face. 

“Baekhyun,” he growled when he glanced up at the other, whose body was being wracked by laughter that was the manifestation of the words  _ haha  _ spilling from his lips. 

“What the hell was that for?” he demanded angrily as he tried to mask the way his heart was still beating rapidly. He frowned, at himself this time — how had he not heard the boy coming?  As if he could read Chanyeol’s mind, Baekhyun clutched his stomach and managed to  get a full sentence out between bursts of giggles: “Wow! I  _ really _ , scared you, didn’t I?” 

“Barely,” the taller replied with a huff. The last thing he needed was for this tiny Wu boy to think he was better than him. “I heard you coming from a mile away.” 

“Mhm,  _ sure _ ,” Baekhyun grinned, clearly not believing him. His smile faded a little when Chanyeol stood up and towered over him, but it returned when he pulled something out of his pocket.  Chanyeol spotted the glint of the blade and backed up, both hands raised: his nerves  were still rattling a little, so now was not the time to get into a fight. Baekhyun laughed at this, and turned the blade away from Chanyeol to reassure him that he meant no harm. 

“As I’m sure you heard earlier, we’ve been learning combat skills since we were children,” Baekhyun began, twiddling the dagger absentmindedly in his hand. Chanyeol was still wary, and didn’t dare to take his eyes off the weapon. “This will be my twelfth year in training. Yixing is about to complete his final year, since he’s three years older than me, and Luhan finished three years ago too. But we all had to go through the same training process, the same old routine of fighting, defending, and sneaking around.” 

“And?” Chanyeol still felt irritated with the younger, so he didn’t know why he bothered asking him such a question. Maybe he just wanted him to stop talking sooner. “What’s your point?” 

“One of the first rules of surviving,” smiled Baekhyun, clearly unfazed by the taller’s tone, as he handed him the dagger, “is to never let your guard down.” 

Chanyeol accepted the hilt of the knife and stared at in confusion, then glanced to see Baekhyun’s face. The shorter was still grinning up at him, as if he’d just given him the best gift in the entire world and was waiting for his reaction. 

“Uh, thanks?” Chanyeol waved the dagger at him. He felt awkward, unsure of what to say. “Presents” weren’t really something that he’d been familiar with since he was seven, and as a runaway with no family, Christmas and birthdays didn’t exactly make their way onto the list of the most important things in his life. Still, the idea that Baekhyun, a stranger whom he’d met less than a day ago, was willing to hand over one of his items so willingly triggered an odd feeling inside of Chanyeol, and he managed to muster up a smile in front of the other boy. 

And this time, it was genuine. 

************ 

By the time that Baekhyun managed to drag Chanyeol away from his room — the taller wasn’t even sure how that had happened, really — it was long past the beginning of dinner, and the shorter boy was clearly impatient because of it. 

“Come  _ on _ ,” he demanded with another tug on the curly-haired boy’s sweatshirt. Chanyeol groaned in response, but still let himself be guided down the hall and out the front door of the building, where he was greeted with near-darkness, combated only by the warm street lamps lining the street. He wondered where they were going, since he was certain he’d heard Yixing mention a dining hall in his brief description of the training center. 

“I thought it was time to eat. Where are we going?” he decided to ask after a moment of hesitation. His feet sounded heavy against the cobblestone street, but Baekhyun, on the other hand, moved as silently as if he were floating. 

“To my house,” the shorter told him casually, like he was a friend that had just been invited over for dinner. Seeing Chanyeol’s doubtful expression, Baekhyun shrugged and smiled. “My parents got back while you were asleep. They said they wanted to meet you.” 

“Me?” The tiniest sensation of panic threatened to creep inside of Chanyeol — the idea of meeting the Wu leaders was something he hadn’t counted on occurring so early on, and he wasn’t sure exactly what would happen. What if he screwed it up? What if they recognized him? 

Baekhyun glanced at him and shoved him lightly to shake him from his stupor. “Not just you, you arrogant jerk. Your friends too.” 

Chanyeol cracked a smile at that, before shoving Baekhyun back. The pair soon arrived at a large house located nearer to the center of the village, its two big brick chimneys making it visible even before they turned onto the street. Light spilled from the numerous floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the facade with shadows moving about on the first floor. Chanyeol thought it a bit suspicious that such a prominent family should let the interior of their home be so visible. Maybe the Wus were even less intelligent than he’d given them credit for.

He followed Baekhyun across the yard of lush green grass that was broken only by a  brick paver walkway. Little markings were scratched into the stones, and when Chanyeol leaned down to peer closer at them, he realized that they names and dates were etched into them. He didn’t have time to read them because Baekhyun kept his big strides as he moved ahead, but the taller was able to spot several “BBH” initials carved into the bricks. 

The black-haired boy was already ringing the doorbell by the time Chanyeol scrambled to catch up with him, and when the other turned around to stare inquisitively at him, he merely grinned innocently. It was a relief that he’d done so, because a pre-prepared smile was plastered across his face when the door opened, by the overly-zealous guide from earlier — Jongdae, his name had been. 

“Oh!” The young man seemed surprised to see them, even though this was Baekhyun’s house, and Chanyeol had to wonder if this guy was ever prepared for  _ anything _ . Nonetheless, he turned his head to call to the rest of the people in the house, “Baekhyun’s here! And he brought his friend!” 

Baekhyun grunted in annoyance as he brushed past Jongdae, Chanyeol following suit. “He is  _ not  _ my friend.” 

The curly-haired boy remained silent as he trailed after Baekhyun, who led him through a grand foyer room and into an elaborate parlor decorated with expensive-looking china plates and more cushions than Chanyeol could count. Their appearance under the curved archway sent up a chorus of cheers from the occupants, which admittedly threw Chanyeol a little off balance.  “There you are, Baekhyun!” someone exclaimed — Yixing. The smile on his face as he  gazed at his younger brother told Chanyeol that whatever problems they’d been experiencing other were solved — or at least postponed until later discussions. 

Chanyeol was on high alert when he heard Jongdae approach from behind and sling an arm around his shoulder, making him stiffen in discomfort. “What took you guys so long? We’ve been waiting forever.” 

Baekhyun sent a pointed look to Chanyeol, which he answered with a roll of his eyes. “This idiot here was taking his sweet time, but I’m sorry we’re late,” the black-haired boy apologized, directing his quick bow to a pair of people sitting nearby. Chanyeol’s breath hitched. 

It was them. It was the Wus. There they were, the couple that had seared their existence into his memory for the last ten years, and yet they hadn’t changed all that much. Wu Yifan was still a towering giant, even sitting down, and though his sharp angles had softened slightly from age, the cutting stare of his gaze still made Chanyeol feel like a seven-year old boy all over again; his fingers twitched, reaching for the comfort of his handguns that he no longer held in possession. By his side, 

Junmyeon was a total contrast, with a small build and a kind smile that reached all the way up to his gentle eyes, which were the same color as his chocolate brown hair. 

Someone must have said something to Chanyeol, because he suddenly realized that the entire room had fallen silent, and that all eyes were fixated on his face. He gulped, not used to feeling so small in the spotlight, but there was something about the gaze of Yifan and the smile of Junmyeon that made him feel like he was horribly out of place in that parlor. 

Somehow, Baekhyun must have sensed his discomfort, because he put a hand on his shoulder and cleared his throat loudly to grab everyone’s attention. “Well, now that we’re here, shall we eat?” 

A hearty whoop was heard from Jongdae, and the procession of people spilled into the next room, which was an elegant dining room easily the length of two buses put end-to-end. It seemed excessive to Chanyeol, but then he spied the dinner table that was laid with all manner of five-star foods — marinated goose, fried artichoke, boiled lobster, lemon roast chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, and any other menu item under the sun. Chanyeol had thought that the hamburger he’d eaten earlier that day was fancy, but it paled comparison to this spread. 

Twelve plates were set around the circular table, and it took the curly-haired boy to realize that there were so many people in the room: himself, his three friends, Baekhyun and his two brothers, Minseok, Kyungsoo, Jongdae, and the two newly-arrived leaders. 

He could only stand there awkwardly as the majority of the party found their seats quickly and sat down, while he debated where to sit. He saw Baekhyun glance up at him expectantly, as if somehow they were close enough now to be dinner-buddies, and he quickly averted his gaze elsewhere. He spotted Sehun about to sit down next to Tao, but slid into the seat before the younger could do so. 

“Hey,” Sehun protested with a pout. Chanyeol gestured to the empty seat right beside him. “There’s a spot right there.” “But I wanted to sit next to Tao,” grumbled Sehun, sinking into the chair nonetheless. The older sighed in relief: he’d managed to nab a spot on the complete opposite side of Baekhyun and his parents, who flanked him like some battle formation. The boy had always seemed small, but he looked even tinier next to Yifan. 

Chanyeol would have expected the younger to be intimidated by his father — who wouldn’t, with that ice-cold gaze? But when the pair made eye contact, the frostiness in his expression melted entirely, and he offered a warm smile to his son. 

Unable to believe the change in expression, Chanyeol chose to look elsewhere: Jongin was to the right of Tao, and had been forced to sit next to Kyungsoo. Chanyeol smirked at his friend: good luck with that grumpy guy, he thought. On the other side of Kyungsoo were Minseok and Luhan, who were already busy chatting away in that strangely intimate way they did. Wedged between Sehun and Junmyeon were Jongdae and Yixing, who also appeared to be deeply absorbed in their conversation, though the former seemed to be the one doing all the talking. Meanwhile, Tao and Sehun had chosen not to let their long distance get in the way, and had opted to shout directly across Chanyeol, as if he wasn’t there. 

It was strange: for once in his life, Chanyeol was physically unable to get a word in edgewise. 

The only thing that was able to break the steady stream of conversation flowing between the eleven other mouths in the room was a delicate  _ ding  _ of a spoon on glass, and all eyes were directed to Junmyeon. The older man seemed delighted by this, and rose to his feet with a dazzling smile (though truthfully, his standing position brought him to roughly the same height as Yifan’s sedentary form). 

“Excuse me, everyone!” he greeted in a cheery voice, which was just as lovely as his appearance would have one believe. “I just want to say a special hello to our guests, who I am very happy could join us tonight.” 

Clapping followed his words, and Chanyeol felt his face burn with embarrassment. He didn’t want these people clapping for him or smiling at him; Jongin seemed to share his sentiment. A quick glance to his left and right, however, let him see how much Sehun and Tao were eating up all the attention. 

“It’s unfortunate that our mission earlier today was a failure, but I’m glad that we could at least end the day on a good note, like this,” Junmyeon continued, and raised his glass in a toast. Everyone followed his example — some more reluctantly than others — and thrust their drinks forward in a collective “ _ cheers _ !”. 

While everybody else began scooping heaps of food onto their plates, Chanyeol remained still and let his mind sift through the words that Junmyeon had just said. He’d mentioned that their mission, which Chanyeol recalled was to bring back any surviving members of the Kang clan — had been a failure. What did that mean then? Had they been unable to find any survivors? Or had the survivors simply refused to come with them? 

The tall boy glanced at the pair seated across from him, analyzing the smiles they exchanged and the laughter that escaped them. How genuine were those grins? Why was Junmyeon so warm, and Yifan so cold? Surely, they couldn’t be a good match with such opposite personalities. There had to be some other purpose behind their marriage, one which Chanyeol would be sure to find out. 

“Chan,” Jongin called to him unexpectedly, and he fixed his expression to be as natural as possible. 

“Hmm?” “Eat your food,” the tan boy scolded him with a meaningful look towards the two leaders seated nearby, as if to really say,  _ Stop being rude. You’re making us look bad _ . 

Chanyeol was about to protest and suggest that maybe the Wus had poisoned their food — after all, if they’d had the capacity to kill an entire family, then it wasn’t out of the question. 

But then he locked eyes with Kyungsoo beside Jongin. The younger’s big black eyes were wide with suspicion and distrust, the kind that sent a shiver down Chanyeol’s back. The brunet clearly didn’t care that he’d been caught staring — glaring, more like — and that made Chanyeol feel even more agitated. This boy wasn’t normal. This whole  _ family  _ wasn’t normal. 

Under Kyungsoo’s watchful gaze, Chanyeol took a bite of the chicken wing that someone had placed on his plate, and swallowed it down with a gulp. 

************ 

It was unclear at which point Chanyeol had let his inhibitions about the food vanish, and had given himself up entirely to the inescapable splendor of the meal. 

Nevertheless, his food belly was enough to rival that of anybody else’s at the table, and he found himself smiling along with the rest of the group as Jongdae and Sehun bickered back and forth about who had eaten more helpings of lasagna casserole. 

All was going well, until Yifan leaned forward in his seat and decided to speak up. “Now that we’re all done eating, I’d like to get to know a little more about our guests.” His words were different than Junmyeon’s: he wasn’t  _ requesting  _ their attention, he was  _ commanding  _ it. He didn’t smile when all of their eyes turned to his face; he sat up straight and folded his hands together, lips as firm as ever. While the other male seemed to enjoy being the center of attention, Wu Yifan shouldered it as if were just another burden. 

It was Luhan who spoke first, which seemed typical, given that he was the oldest sibling. “What do you want to know, Father?” 

The tall man gazed at Chanyeol and his friends, scrutinizing them without doing more than moving his eyes across their faces. “Everything. Where are you from? Who were you with before? Why exactly are you here?” 

This time, it was Baekhyun who tried to speak up in their place. “Father, I already explained those things to you when you —” 

Yifan cut him off without even looking at him. “Not you, son. I want to hear it from  _ them _ .” Chanyeol swallowed slowly: this guy was  _ tough _ . It was unclear whether he didn’t believe them, or if he truly just wanted to hear their stories directly from their mouths. Either way, Chanyeol’s role as the unelected leader of their ragtag little group forced him to keep his gaze even, his voice steady as he spoke. 

“My name is Kim Chanyeol,” he answered without wavering once, “and these are my friends Kim Jongin, Huang Zitao, and Oh Sehun. We were forced to run away from our clans when we were young, and with all the attacks that have been happening, we figured it would be safest to find another clan to join. And then earlier today we, uh...” 

The sudden pause in Chanyeol’s story was suspicious enough to raise a few eyebrows from the Wu members seated around the table, as well as from his friends, who knew that he was not the type to stammer. 

The truth was, he had made the mistake of meeting Baekhyun’s eyes, and was finding trouble getting the words out. 

Earlier, he’d had no problem with admitting that he and his friends had met Baekhyun in Sedona, where he now vaguely understood that the boy was forbidden from venturing. For some reason, however, he couldn’t quite force himself to do the same now. 

He winced a little under the scrutiny of Yifan’s piercing eyes. “And we met Baekhyun near here. He found out who we were, and we asked if we could meet his clan.” 

A light little gasp escaped Junmyeon, who brought a hand to his mouth in disbelief. “Hyunnie,  _ you  _ brought them here?” 

Baekhyun wriggled in his seat in discomfort. “Dad, they were in trouble. They were obviously exhausted and underfed. I couldn’t just leave them.” 

Chanyeol raised his eyebrows at that — the shorter boy hadn’t mentioned that before. He wondered if it was true, or if it was just an excuse to get him out of trouble. It was a pretty persuasive argument, regardless of the boy’s sincerity. 

Junmyeon glanced towards Chanyeol and his friends, biting his lip anxiously like Baekhyun did. He sighed when he saw their appearances. “You’re right. They do look too thin for boys their size.” 

Yifan, on the other hand, seemed less easy to convince. “So? What do you boys hope to find here? Are you seeking temporary shelter until the attacks subside, or are you looking for something more permanent, like induction into the clan?” 

Eight eyes widened at the same time as the four boys absorbed the leader’s words. Induction would mean throwing away all ties to their old clans: abandoning their names, removing any symbols (however painful), and pledging complete alliance to the new clan. It was the utmost form of loyalty that one could show in the chaotic world of the mafia, and the promises it bore were binding, life or death. Induction was something they hadn’t discussed yet, and it was a very serious matter. 

And yet, to Chanyeol at least, it required no discussion. He had come this far, with only the thought of getting his revenge on the Wus. There was no point in holding onto the past, to the Park name. Everything that had once made him who he was, was now dead, and had been destroyed by the Wus. He had thrown everything else away to arrive where he was now, and there was no doubt in his mind that he would do whatever else it took to continue on. Even if that meant giving up his very identity, and the only connection he had left to his dead family and clan members. 

“We want to be inducted,” Chanyeol told Yifan with absolute certainty. His friends didn’t even seem surprised: they had known what his answer would be. 

The resilience burning in the curly-haired boy’s eyes must have been apparent, because Yifan didn’t bother asking twice. He just nodded, took a sip of wine from his glass, and set it back down calmly. 

“Very well. But I must warn you that I am less trusting than many members of my clan and my family,” Yifan told Chanyeol, keeping the younger boy’s eyes locked in a fierce battle of fiery and icy gazes. “For that reason, I cannot permit you to immediately join our clan.” 

“Yifan!” Junmyeon exclaimed in obvious displeasure. He flashed a pitying gaze at the four runaway boys, before turning back to his husband with that same emotion brimming in his eyes. “Why not? They haven’t done anything wrong!” 

Chanyeol resisted the urge to swallow. Junmyeon was too trusting. Too trusting. “ _ That we know of _ ,” Yifan reminded him, proving that he was much less easy to win over. His lips remained set in a firm straight line, though his gaze when fastened upon Junmyeon was significantly softer. “We know very little about these boys, Jun. We cannot just let them enter our way of life and potentially endanger the other members.” 

The words clearly dampened Junmyeon’s spirits, though the gentle-looking man nodded and lowered his gaze. It was obvious that Yifan’s opinion weighed heavier, at least in this argument, and yet the taller still placed a hand over his husband’s to comfort him, almost apologetically. 

“ _ However _ , I am not heartless enough to turn you away when there are so many ongoing attacks, so I will offer you a deal. I am willing to place you four on a probation period, in which you can live, train, and fight alongside us. At the same time, Junmyeon and I —” he went on, sliding an arm across the shorter’s shoulders, “ — will be observing you and determining whether or not you are fit to become members of our clan. After three months, if you seem trustworthy, you will be inducted into our clan.” 

Chanyeol had been waiting for a stipulation on the end of such a golden deal — it had seemed to good to be true — and when he heard it, he wanted to groan in dismay.  _ Three months!  _ That was much longer than he’d been anticipating, and he feared that he wouldn’t be able to keep up his nice-guy act for more than a few weeks. 

Jongin must have sensed his disbelief, because the tan boy was the one to speak this time, sounding a bit breathless as he spoke. “T-Thank you! Thank you so much!” 

Tao and Sehun were quick to echo his thanks, and then Tao was jabbing Chanyeol not-so subtly in the ribs to coerce him into doing the same. 

“Yeah, thanks,” the dark-haired boy mimicked while trying not to grit his teeth too much. The older man grunted, and Chanyeol figured that was as close to “You’re welcome” as they would ever be getting. 

Yixing seemed to be the Wu with the best sense of social cues, for it was the dimpled young man who slowly stood from the table and bowed to his parents with a gracious smile. “I think it’s best for our guests to go back to their rooms now. As I’m sure you’ve heard, it’s been quite a long day for them, and they need as much rest as possible if they’re going to start training tomorrow.” 

Chanyeol’s big ears pricked up at that, but Sehun beat him to the question he’d been about to ask: “What training?” 

The brunet saw Baekhyun sit up suddenly in his seat, as if eager to be able to answer, but Luhan replied first (he couldn’t be blamed though, since he obviously hadn’t been able to see his younger brother). 

“How long did you think we would wait until beginning to train you?” Luhan teased with that laidback grin of his. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste around here, so you’ll be getting started right away.” 

As much as he wanted to moan and groan at the thought of waking up early to train, Chanyeol had no choice but to smile, big and toothy. “Fantastic.” 

************ 

It had been Baekhyun that walked Chanyeol to his house, and it was Baekhyun who opted to walk him back. Maybe it was because Chanyeol had been impatient to get back to his bed, while his friends had remained for a few more minutes to talk to the Wus. Baekhyun probably just felt bad for him. Chanyeol hated the thought of anybody pitying him, but he chose not to protest nonetheless. 

As they stepped away from the Wu household home, Chanyeol glanced back at the impressive residence, his eyes latching onto the two brick chimneys that he’d first noticed. They 

seemed out of place, the more he thought about the fact that they were underground, and his curiosity overpowered his resolve to never initiate conversation with Baekhyun, ever. 

“Why does your house have chimneys? Isn’t that, I don’t know,  _ bad  _ for the air down here?” 

Baekhyun glanced up to where the taller was pointing, and he blinked slowly, as if he’d forgotten they were there in the first place. Then he shrugged. “They’re fake.” 

Chanyeol snorted. Typical rich people. “Who puts fake chimneys on a house?” Another shrug, though this time Baekhyun kept on walking. “My parents modeled this house after our old house — the one we had to leave behind.” 

That struck another chord of curiosity inside of Chanyeol, which he absolutely  _ hated _ . Still, his mouth moved with a will of its own: “What do you mean? You guys didn’t always live down here?” 

Now Baekhyun was the one to snort. “You really think any sane person would  _ choose  _ to live in a cave like this? No, we hollowed out this mountain and moved here because of all the attacks from Lee Sooman. My parents knew it wasn’t safe for us, so they moved our clan down here. Anybody who didn’t like it had to leave, but the majority of the mafia stuck together.” 

A low whistle left Chanyeol’s lips — he couldn’t help it. “That’s a bit cruel, don’t you think? Forcing people to leave the clan, I mean.” 

Baekhyun blinked up at him. Even with shadows stretched across his face from the street lights, bewilderment was evident across his features, as if he’d never considered such a thing. 

“It wasn’t cruel!” he insisted as he paused for a moment on the street. Chanyeol stopped, only a few feet away. “My parents just wanted the best for all of us. We were too exposed in our old location, and so we had no choice but to leave. We would have been killed otherwise.” 

_ Oh, you mean like how you killed my family?  _ Chanyeol wanted to scream at the shorter boy. His fingers were itching to wrap around the boy’s slender little neck and squeeze until every breath was gone. He wanted to get rid of the stubborn pride in those beautiful black eyes. He wanted to slap him for looking so confident in what he was saying. He wanted to scream and shout at him at the top of his lungs, and remind him of everything that his family had done to ruin the last ten years. He wanted to put an end to the boy’s life, right there in the middle of that cobblestone street. 

But he didn’t. He just kept walking, listening for the sound of the other boy’s footsteps scrambling after him. 

“So, what, they just decided to rebuild your house down here?” Chanyeol went on with their original conversation, as if he hadn’t just been contemplating killing the black-haired boy. 

Baekhyun, of course, was completely clueless as he swung his arms back and forth by his side. “Yep. It’s a complete replica of the one on the surface, before we bulldozed it. My bedroom even has the same wallpaper as before!” He laughed, and it was a carefree sound that filled up the empty street. “The Hundred Acre Woods.” 

Chanyeol wrinkled his nose at that. “As in Winnie the Pooh?  _ That  _ Hundred Acre Woods?”  Even under the taller boy’s disapproving scowl, Baekhyun didn’t shrink away in  embarrassment. “Yeah. I used to love those books.” 

The pair stopped talking then, for they had arrived at the end of the familiar curved street from earlier, with the ominous-looking training center waiting before them. The night was painting terrifying shadows across the building, with dark shapes creeping from the ivy and shimmying down the fire escapes. Chanyeol had never been one who was easily spooked, but even he had to suppress a shudder at the thought of sleeping in that building all alone tonight. 

In an attempt to ward off his rising panic, Chanyeol turned squarely to the boy by his side and saluted him in a mock-sign of gratitude. “Well, midget, thanks for the help. See ya tomorrow.” 

Chanyeol walked off before the shorter could reply with some snippy comment, but was surprised when the boy called out to him in a relatively neutral tone: “Chanyeol! Wait a second.” 

He waited for the boy to scurry to his side. “What is it?” Baekhyun’s eyes were big and black and blown open. “Do you want me to sleep with you tonight?” 

“ _ What? _ ” Seeing the disgust that had begun to bloom across Chanyeol’s face, Baekhyun gasped and waved his hands back and forth. “I didn’t mean it like that! I’m not —” He grunted in frustration. “I just wanted to help... in case you, y’know, needed some company.” 

A blush was creeping up Baekhyun’s neck, the dark red tint visible only because of the street lamp a few feet away. Chanyeol smirked at the innocent Wu child, amusement replacing any trepidation he may have been feeling a moment ago. 

He suddenly leaned down towards Baekhyun. He was impressed when the other didn’t flinch, despite their faces being mere inches apart. 

“If you liked me that much, you should have just said so,” Chanyeol teased, breath hitting Baekhyun’s lips. 

The younger bit his lip anxiously, but still didn’t back away. Chanyeol had to give the other boy credit: Baekhyun was just as bold as him. 

When Baekhyun offered no retort, the taller boy just gave him one last devilish grin, and then backed away towards the steps of the training center. He didn’t wait to see if Baekhyun was following him, or if he was still standing there: the shadows creeping along the edge of the building had him scared out of his wits, and he shut himself in the house as quick as he could blink, before running back to his room and locking the door behind him. 

As Chanyeol slept that night, the building creaked and groaned around him, all while he dreamed of falling birds and falling bodies. 

* * *

_ “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown, but longed for still.”  _

**PART I, chapter iii**

“Chanyeol. Chanyeol, wake up. Chan.” The curly-headed boy squinted at the sound of his name being called; one big eye popped open and he scanned the tan boy by his side. Jongin was leaned down over him, an amused smile on his face as he took in his friend’s bed-ridden appearance. 

“Wow,” Jongin laughed with a shake of his head, eyeing the monstrous nest that had formed on top of Chanyeol’s head, “your mother would throw a fit if she saw you with that hair.” 

Chanyeol ignored the comment about his mother, and chose to fix it himself, grumbling all the while. He clambered out of bed after a moment or two once he’d recalled his surroundings — the dormlike beds in disarray, the shirt and pants he’d lost at some point during the night, the creaky pipes screaming overhead — and threw on the same clothes he’d worn yesterday. His other sets of clothing were likely still outside in the truck, stuffed away in his backpack, but he didn’t feel like asking one of the Wu members to let him outside. It seemed a bit ridiculous, like a dog scratching at the door and begging to go frolic in the yard. 

The other boy scrunched his nose at the stench that had begun to gather around Chanyeol. “Chan, you really need to shower. You stink.” 

Embarrassed, the tall boy merely rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to admit to the other that he’d been drowning in his own sweat the entire night — an effect of him sleeping alone and being terrorized by dreams until dawn. 

Recalling this, Chanyeol pointed an accusing finger at Jongin. “Where were you last night?” He caught sight of the other bed in the room, which was still perfectly made, unlike his own that had been disrupted by his writhing form all through the night. “You never came to sleep in here, did you?” 

Jongin shrugged at him as he began making Chanyeol’s bed without being asked to. “What was I supposed to do? I came back here about an hour after you did, but the door was locked until this morning. I didn’t want to disturb the Wus any further, so I just slept in Sehun and Tao’s room.” 

Chanyeol felt a little relieved that he hadn’t been completely alone last night, though that didn’t help his exhaustion at all. “What about Sehun and Tao then? Where did they sleep?” 

“They crashed at the Wus’ house,” laughed the other with a wave of his hand. “I think it was all the food that got to them. I couldn’t have moved them, even if I wanted to.” 

When Chanyeol didn’t reply, Jongin paused his busy work for a moment to glance at the older. He must have sensed his sour mood, because he sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Chanyeol. I’m sorry that you had to be alone last night. You know it wasn’t on purpose.” 

“I know,” Chanyeol nodded. “I know.” Jongin didn’t seem satisfied with his answer; he opened his mouth to say something else, but was cut off by a loud, booming voice headed their way: “GOOD MORNING!” 

The two boys exchanged alarmed glances, and only a moment later, the door was being kicked open by none other than Jongdae, who had the biggest, most terrifying grin on his face that Chanyeol had ever seen. “RISE AND SHINE, SLEEPYHEADS!” 

He was met with mixed reactions from the pair of friends, but ignored them both completely before heading to the room next door and exacting the same torturous wake-up call on Sehun and Tao. 

“I guess that’s our morning alarm,” Jongin sighed thoughtfully. He glanced down at Chanyeol’s immobile form and smiled, nudging him with his foot. “Come on, you big lug. Since when have you ever been afraid of training?” 

“I’m not afraid, I’m just not in the mood,” Chanyeol insisted, though Jongin’s methods of reverse psychology seemed to be working on him: he was soon moving out the door, down the hallway, and heading towards where he vaguely recalled Yixing saying the training room was. Jongin just trotted after him, happy to have achieved such a miraculous feat as ordering Chanyeol and not get scolded for it. 

When the pair arrived, they were met with the sight of about fifty or so boys and girls about their age, each dressed top to bottom in black training gear. All held a weapon in their hand, whether it was something grand and mighty like a sword or a bow with arrows, or something less flashy, like a dagger, or even a slingshot. Admittedly, Chanyeol wasn’t used to seeing this many people his age gathered in one space, nor clothed in such an intimidating manner. It felt a bit like watching a war reenactment, though the battlefield was much nicer than one might expect. 

The trainees, as Chanyeol assumed they were, were all crammed into a large, rectangular room that, upon first glance, resembled a gymnasium, with ropes and dummies hanging from the ceiling, mats splayed out across the floor, and a running track wrapped around the perimeter. Upon closer inspection, however, Chanyeol was able to note the rather atypical features present, such as the spikes lodged into the side of the wall, the complex rope course hanging overhead, and the treacherous path of obstacles located on the far side of the room. 

Chanyeol gulped. This was not what he had signed up for. He turned when he heard footsteps approaching from behind, and saw Sehun and Tao nearing where he stood with Jongin. They were just as apprehensive as he had been, if not more so.  “Is it too late to back out?” Sehun muttered under his breath as they watched some of  the trainees swing their weapons around with the ease of an expert. Chanyeol had just been wondering the same exact thing, simultaneously grieving the loss of his precious handguns (which he still wondered if Kyungsoo would ever give back to him). 

Unfortunately, it was right at that moment that the three Wu sons chose to enter the gym, their presence immediately silencing the buzz of noise that had been floating throughout the throng of trainees. The boys and girls appeared especially nervous in front of Luhan, averting their eyes as he walked to the center of the room. Chanyeol found that quite funny, considering that the man couldn’t see them anyway — but at the same time, there was something powerful and awe-inspiring enough about Luhan that Chanyeol wouldn’t have been surprised if he discovered the older  _ could  _ see after all. 

Unlike his older brother, Yixing went to stand over with the trainees, though the way he carried himself and his strong arms were displayed for all to see, it was obvious that he was far superior to them in skill. Chanyeol suddenly recalled Baekhyun saying that Yixing was in the process of completing his final year of training, which explained the obvious difference in stature.  At the thought of Baekhyun’s name, Chanyeol tried to search for the shorter boy in the  crowd: it took him quite a while to locate the black-haired boy, but he eventually found him wedged between two tall girls that towered over him, almost comically so. A pair of daggers were clenched tightly in his little fists. 

A twinge of some strange emotion plucked at Chanyeol’s heartstrings when he saw Baekhyun like that: both of his brothers were clearly natural, well-respected leaders, while the youngest seemed like a second thought in the crowd of trainees. 

The curly-haired boy must have stared for too long: Baekhyun seemed to sense Chanyeol’s eyes on him, and suddenly fixated his gaze on him. It was too late for Chanyeol to play it cool, so he merely offered a smile to the shorter (why he did that, he would never know). 

Baekhyun seemed stunned by the uncharacteristic grin he had received, and responded with an eager little wave. Chanyeol had to resist the urge to laugh when one of the daggers in Baekhyun’s hand almost clipped the girl to his left, mouthing the word “oops” to him. Chanyeol’s grin widened. 

A nudge against his elbow broke him from the eye contact, and he glanced over at Jongin, who was looking at him funny. “Chanyeol, pay attention,” he whispered with a nod towards Luhan. 

Realizing that he’d been completely zoned out, Chanyeol did his best to listen to the instructions that spilled from Luhan’s lips — simple things about playing nice and trying not to kill the four new boys too much — but his eyes kept traveling over to Baekhyun’s tiny frame, for some reason. 

“...with our four guests,” Luhan was saying to the trainees, and now Chanyeol really did force himself to listen, “as we begin the morning routine. To your positions!” 

His cane struck the ground once, and all of the trainees scattered from their spots to various stations around the room, and immediately began their “morning routine,” whether it was hurling ninja stars at targets or swinging from rope to rope above the ground like chimpanzees. Chanyeol was left reeling from so much activity, though he felt a bit better when he heard Luhan laugh at him from nearby. 

“You boys must be feeling a little nauseous,” the light-haired male guessed, and Chanyeol once again was astounded by the man’s uncanny ability to read people without  _ seeing  _ them. 

All he could do was nod, but then he thought better of it as the blind man approached, and agreed with a quiet grunt. “I thought we would just be doing some simple punching and kicking. This is way more intense than what I was expecting.” 

For the second time that morning, Chanyeol’s gaze was drawn to a certain black-haired boy, who was busy slicing his pair of daggers through the air furiously, the opponent in front of him clearly intimidated. Baekhyun was petite, but that didn’t seem to matter to the burly male, whom Baekhyun had backed into one corner of the gym. With one fell swoop, the shorter 

knocked his opponent’s weapon from his hand, and it dropped to the gym floor with a satisfying clatter. 

“Impressive, aren’t they?” Luhan murmured to Chanyeol, too quietly for his friends to hear. It was a simple question, but there seemed to be more to its meaning, lying just below the surface of their polite conversation. 

The curly-haired boy resisted the urge to flinch; he felt as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have done, though he hadn’t been doing a single thing. He glanced over at Luhan’s expression; his eyes were unfocused and glossy as ever, like looking through translucent glass, yet his smile held amusement. 

Before Chanyeol had to try to think up an excuse, the door that the Wu brothers had entered from earlier opened up, letting the light from outside spill in around a man’s short form. When the door fell shut, Chanyeol recognized the male as Junmyeon, whose enormous smile seemed to take up the majority of his body capacity. 

When the other trainees spotted the second Wu leader, they all ceased their activities in an instant and dipped their heads with a respectful bow. He put them at ease with a simple wave of his hand and another radiant smile. “As you were.” 

Luhan clearly heard the absence of swords clinking and clanking, and turned his head just a fraction to the left, as if sensing that someone had just entered the room. “Who is it?” 

It took Chanyeol a moment to realize that he was talking to  _ him _ ; he kept forgetting that Luhan’s loyal companion Minseok wasn’t around. So it took him a second to reply, coughing lightly beforehand: “Junmyeon. Your dad.” 

“Ah. Thank you.” The trainees waited until Junmyeon had wandered past them until they resumed their secluded battles; the man, meanwhile, made his way towards Luhan and the four boys. His grin had turned a little mischievous, Chanyeol realized when he got closer, and he waved at them in almost a conspiring way. 

“Sorry for popping in so unexpected like this,” he giggled, more so to Luhan than the rest of them. He reminded Chanyeol of an overeager mother watching her son enter the classroom on the first day of school: proud for all that the child had accomplished, but also desperate to still be a part of it. 

This must have been a characteristic trait of Junmyeon, for Luhan just smiled and nodded happily. “Always happy to have you around. Is there something you need? Or are you just here to watch?” 

“I always love watching the trainees’ progress, of course,” Junmyeon was quick to say, Proud Mom Mode back on, but then his gaze slid to Chanyeol, and his friends beside him. “But... I actually wanted to come give some encouragement to our guests before they start their first day of training.” 

“ _ Really? _ ” Chanyeol was shocked — why would Junmyeon care about them? A rapid exchange of eye contact with Sehun, Tao, and Jongin let him know that they were just as stunned and perplexed. 

Junmyeon, on the other hand, merely chuckled at their bewilderment. “Of course. I know Yifan said he doesn’t trust you yet, but.... I do.” 

The brunet male’s eyes glimmered with something foreign, something too tender for Chanyeol to put into words, and he had to look away from Junmyeon’s gaze because of it. If Luhan was surprised, he didn’t let it show. “Do you think they should choose their appellations?” 

His dad nodded at him, seeming a bit more serious now. “If they want to become true members of this clan, then that is the first step.” 

Chanyeol was a bit lost in the conversation at this point — an appellation? What was that? And why was it so important that they should be introduced to it on only the second day of being in the community? 

Oblivious to the boy’s internal onslaught of questions, Junmyeon turned back to Luhan with a regretful smile on his face. “I would love to help them myself, but unfortunately Yifan needs me in the office. We have to re-route our plans after the, ah,  _ incident  _ last night.” 

“Of course.” Luhan nodded knowingly. “I’m also unable to help them, since I have to stay here and monitor the trainees. Is Yixing busy?” 

Junmyeon and the others glanced over to where the brunet had been standing earlier, only to see him bent over a girl that had crumpled to the ground. She appeared to be fine, considering that Yixing was just propping her head up and fanning her lightly, but the medic was nonetheless occupied. 

Luhan must have taken the silence as an answer to his question, for he hummed lightly before speaking. “Hmm. How about Hyunnie then?” 

Hyunnie. Baekhyun. Chanyeol’s again traveled to the lithe little male, who was now dodging flaming tires with the grace of a gazelle. Chanyeol had to keep his jaw from dropping open in disbelief — this was the same stubborn boy who had clumsily bumped into him the first time they met? 

Junmyeon smiled proudly at his youngest son, and clapped his oldest on the shoulder. “I’ll tell him. Bye, Lu. Bye, boys!” 

Chanyeol watched once more as Junmyeon headed towards the door he’d entered through — receiving the same series of bows and greetings as before from the trainees — and stopped long enough by Baekhyun’s side to whisper something in his ear. The boy seemed surprised by what he was told, though when he looked over and met Chanyeol’s gaze, his grin was giddy with excitement. 

Moments later, once Junmyeon was out the door, Baekhyun stood before them, huffing and puffing, sweat dripping down his forehead from the rigorous routine he’d been just been performing. But a big smile was on his face, all the same. 

“Hyun,” Luhan said when he was aware of his brother’s presence, “could you please take these four to the main office?” 

“Sure, Lu,” Baekhyun immediately agreed breathlessly. “What do you need them to do?” “I need  _ you  _ to help them record their appellations.” Baekhyun raised his eyebrows at that. “Already? But, they’ve only been here a day, and we usually —” 

“I know, Baekhyun,” the older male said in a tone that wasn’t harsh, but left no room for argument. 

The black-haired boy seemed to sense this too, for his mouth instantly snapped shut and he just nodded. “Alright. Come on.” 

Chanyeol wasn’t sure if he was supposed to bow or say goodbye to Luhan, who was obviously in a high-ranking position in this place, but Baekhyun sped away so quickly that the taller had no choice but to scurry after him. He huffed — why did it seem like everyone was always in such a hurry around here? 

With his friends following close behind, Chanyeol followed Baekhyun out of the gym and the training building to the cobblestone street; a few winding pathways later, and they were facing a small, squat building with nothing but square sides and sloped angles. It somehow reminded Chanyeol of Kyungsoo. 

He snorted at the thought, and Jongin gave him a questioning look. “Nothing. Just looks like Kyungsoo to me is all.” He waited for his friend to laugh, but the other only cracked a half-smile. Baekhyun led the way into the building, where they were immediately met by a woman with glasses seated behind a large desk. She looked just like one of the old secretaries at Chanyeol’s elementary school, which he had stopped going to by the age of eight. 

When the woman lifted her head to see who had entered, her eyes grew wide, and she scrambled to her feet instantly. “Good morning, sir!” 

“Good morning,” Baekhyun greeted with a thick layer of politeness coating his tone. He waited for the woman to sit back down before speaking again. “Where are the records and documents for all the appellations?” 

Chanyeol didn’t know if he should feel embarrassed for the woman when she tripped trying to clamber out from behind her desk, then nearly tripping again on the carpet as she scuttled down the hallway. She brought them to the last door in the corridor and opened it wide for them to pass through, before once again scampering away and stumbling over her own feet. 

“Have a seat, please,” Baekhyun said to them with a lazy gesture towards the chairs forming a semi-circle in the center of the room. He went to dig through one of the massive file cabinets that was on the opposite side of the room, while Jongin, Tao, and Sehun all followed his request. Chanyeol, on the other hand, remained standing. 

Having quickly sorted through the files and surfaced with a few loosely-bound notebooks, Baekhyun turned back around. His neutral expression hardened into annoyance when he saw Chanyeol blatantly refusing to sit. “I said, sit down.” 

“I heard you,” the curly-haired boy replied with just as much bite. He pointed to the papers clutched between Baekhyun’s hands. “What are those papers for?” 

The boy’s eyes narrowed into small slits. “Appellations.” “And what are those?” “Sit down first, and then I’ll tell you.” Chanyeol was not one to be bossed around. Having been the youngest of his siblings, he had nurtured a hatred for inferiority at a young age, and since then had grown accustomed to being the leader of his group of friends, the one who handed orders without others questioning his authority. Now, having this little pipsqueak Wu child trying to tell him what to do, Chanyeol was feeling thoroughly irritated. 

But Baekhyun, it seemed, wanted to prove he was just as stubborn, for he quirked up a single eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall when Chanyeol didn’t move. He stayed perfectly still like that, for minutes than the taller would have liked to count, and he wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he finally gave up and sank into the seat next to Jongin, a reproachful scowl on his friend’s face. Chanyeol pointedly ignored the look, and fixated his glare on Baekhyun instead. 

“Here in the Wu clan,” the boy began almost immediately, as he too plopped himself down in a chair, “we have an old custom for when you reach the age of sixteen. Typically by this age, children are fully prepared to be invested, capable members of the clan, and they get a permanent symbol — a tattoo — to signify it.” 

“You mean an emblem?” Sehun suddenly interrupted, his mouth as untameable as ever. “Oh, we had those too!” exclaimed Tao with overflowing zealousness, eyes big and bright. His gaze soon dimmed though, when he recalled that they had never been able to partake in such a ritual. 

Oblivious to the other’s internal thoughts, Baekhyun hummed in response. “Sort of. But our custom is a little different, and it connects back to the meaning of our name: Wu. Roughly translated to ‘gateway to heaven’ — that explains why I’m such an angel,” he added on with a self-righteous smile. 

The other three boys offered chuckles in response. Chanyeol could only roll his eyes. “To commemorate our aging, we choose both a constellation and an appellation — a name to match it.” Baekhyun rolled up the sleeve of his big hoodie — another black one, Chanyeol noted, though this time it had the words “ _ five stones _ ” scrawled across in loopy writing. His forearm now exposed, Chanyeol was able to spot the symbol that had given Baekhyun’s identity away immediately: a collection of four dots connected by a single zig-zag line. 

“Its name is Apus,” said Baekhyun, gazing down at the symbol scratched across his skin. “It means ‘Bird of Paradise.’” 

Chanyeol had to chortle at that. “You’re very sanctimonious, aren’t you?” The other boy blinked at the word, then smirked. “Curious about why I chose that name?”  Against his will, Chanyeol nodded a moment or two later. 

“Well if you ever need someone to keep you company in your bed, come and find me. My night-time friends all tell me I’m lots of fun,” Baekhyun said with a not-so subtle wink as he licked his lips. 

For the first time in his entire life, Park Chanyeol  _ blushed  _ at the suggestive words. He heard his friends laugh, and Sehun snort: “Chan, he has the same sense of humor as you! You two would be perfect together!” 

The tall boy had no decent reply to that, so he just huffed and sat up in his seat, desperately trying to change the topic. “Okay, so what’s the use of appellations? Why do you need them at all?” 

The smirk had vanished from Baekhyun’s face: the boy was all-business again. “When we’re out there, doing real fieldwork, it’s safer not to use our real names. That way, if anyone ever overhears a conversation or taps into our radio signal, nobody’s identity will be revealed.” 

“Have you ever needed it yet?” Chanyeol asked, though he wasn’t sure why he did. It was just a question pressing at the back of his mind, begging to escape. 

Baekhyun swallowed thickly. Several seconds passed by before he actually moved again, and even then it was just a slow shake of his head. 

“Not yet,” he whispered. One of his slender fingers — the nail a little long, the bone a bit bent — went to trace the length of his tattoo. It seemed rather intimate, the way he let his gaze roam over the symbol, like he was entranced by the sight of it on his own skin. 

He seemed to sense their eyes on him after a moment or two, and he glanced back up at them, a light pink blush creeping up his neck and face. He smiled out of embarrassment. “But hopefully, someday soon, I’ll be one of the members who get sent out on recon missions.” 

“Like your parents?” Jongin asked in a gentle tone, as if he was speaking to a young child. 

“Like them,” Baekhyun said with a small smile. He shook his head once and rapped his knuckles against the notebooks piled in his lap. “So that’s that. You won’t get to choose a tattoo until you’re officially inducted into the clan, but for now at least you can pick your appellations. I’m sorry, by the way — I know I’m bad at describing these things, but the honor of choosing your own codename like this is extremely important.” 

“So then why does your dad want to let us choose?” Tao questioned, mirroring the confusion that Chanyeol felt. 

A simple shrug was the answer. “That’s what I’d like to know. He must trust you guys a lot.” 

The boy offered up a small smile to the four friends, and though the other three shied away from his trusting eyes — too overcome by their own shame — Chanyeol made sure to stare evenly at him and grin back. It would be more suspicious if he were to avoid eye contact, but an innocent smile and a soft gaze were all that the taller boy needed to convince Baekhyun that he was as trustworthy as Junmyeon believed him to be. 

“Well,” began Baekhyun as he propped open the book on top of his lap, “shall we begin?” 

************ 

In the end, Chanyeol was unable to say exactly what names — what appellations — his friends had chosen: he had been far too focused on the way Baekhyun’s neat little letters filled up the page, his fingers pinched around the ballpoint pen, lips pursed and eyebrows scrunched together in concentration. By the time he had regained his focus, the other boy had been blinking up at him, wanting to know which name he would claim. 

There was no hesitation in his answer. By the time that the five of them walked out of that office, Chanyeol’s friends were busy jabbering about their new monikers, Baekhyun indulging their chatter with a childlike eagerness. 

Chanyeol, on the other hand, was unable to join in the conversation, for his thoughts lay with the secret symbol stained on his skin, wedged right between his shoulder blades: a bird, which belonged not only to his family’s headquarters and emblem, but also to one of the most breathtaking constellations in the night sky. 

A bird, with beautiful, sprawling wings, spread wide as it rose from the ashes. A Phoenix. 

* * *

_ “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown, but longed for still.”  _

**PART I, chapter iv**

_ Clang.  _ The sound of swords clashing created a cacophony that resonated throughout the entire gym. All eyes turned to the two males going head to head: they were in their own world, unperturbed, since everyone was too afraid of what might happen if they were interrupted. 

“You might as well give up now,” the taller of the two hissed in a deadly whisper, his eyes burning with passion and rage. 

The other smirked and managed to let out a small laugh in between pants for air. “Forget it. I’m not walking away until you’re on the ground, begging for mercy.” 

His rival bared his teeth in a malicious grin — his heart raced at the idea of such a challenge. “Well then I guess you’ll be here for a very long time.” 

“I look forward to it.” The first male launched himself forward with a battle-like cry, eyes flashing like a wild man’s. The other stumbled backwards a few steps, but quickly raised his sword in defense:  _ clang, clang _ , went their swords, steel screeching against steel in a seemingly endless fight for the champion to prevail. The other would have to pay — no mercy. 

Sensing the wild mania radiating from his enemy, the second male had only a moment or two to block himself before the weapon was swinging towards him: he blocked it, but barely. To his dismay, it was a red herring on the other male’s part, a diversion to capture his attention from the attack. He wasn’t able to see it coming when the fist came flying towards his face and landed a punch square on his left jaw. 

His sword fell to the ground with a hapless clatter at the same time that he did. He winced in pain, and hurried to stand, but it was too late: the tip of his enemy’s sword was already pointed towards his nose, settled neatly between his two eyes. He went a little cross-eyed from staring at it too long. 

“Give up?” the cocky male asked while smirking. His satisfaction was obvious, for they both knew he’d won. 

The boy on the ground scowled in response. “Fine.” At the utterance of defeat, the threatening sword was replaced by an outstretched hand, though the confident grin remained. “It’s okay, Jongin. You tried your best, but I’m tough to beat.” 

“But you  _ punched  _ me!” Jongin protested, forcing a frown to cover up the smile on his face. “I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules of sword play.” 

“Rules? I didn’t read any rules,” his friend remarked with a thoughtful pout. “If you ever find the sword fighting manual, feel free to give it to me. I’d love to read it.” 

“Whatever, Chan,” the defeated boy chuckled. He knew it was pointless to argue with his friend. Although he didn’t like the way that Chanyeol refused to strictly play by proper fighting etiquette, he had to admit that the taller had a knack for winning. 

Chanyeol was acutely aware of the way that all the trainees in the gym were peeking at the pair of them out of the corner of their eyes. For anyone else, it would have seemed natural, but the dark-haired boy had done enough people-watching in his life to know when he was being sized up. And from the flashy show of swordsmanship that he and Jongin had just put on, it seemed probable that all of the vigilant boys and girls had pointedly decided  _ not  _ to mess with the pair. That had been Chanyeol’s goal after all — make it clear that neither he nor his friends were to be messed with while they were there, and to prove that they could survive just fine without relying on their more familiar revolvers and pistols. Judging by the way all of the trainees scuttled to be out of his pathway, it seemed that his point had been made. 

Jongin excused himself to the restroom for a moment, while Chanyeol went to grab a towel off a nearby rack. He began to mop himself down, as it was a bit bothersome to walk around comfortably with sweat constantly dripping from his hair and into his eyes. He had just rubbing the towel over his chest when he made the mistake of glancing up, eyes coming into contact with Baekhyun. 

The other boy had been leaned back in a chair, presumably resting after another rigorous round of combat training, yet when he was caught staring at the taller male, he scrambled to sit up straight. Chanyeol chuckled at the blush creeping up the side of his neck like ivy. 

“Like what you see?” Baekhyun scowled at him, but the blush remained. “There’s nothing to see.” “Oh yeah?” Chanyeol, feeling rather mischievous all of a sudden, used the towel to sweep back his hair, and then slung it across his neck, closing his eyes and hanging his mouth open in exaggerated exhaustion. When he didn’t hear the other say anything, Chanyeol peeped an eye open, only to see Baekhyun pointedly keeping his gaze directed at the floor. 

The curly-haired boy frowned — if there was one thing he hated, it was being ignored. Fed up with his own little game, he tossed the towel to the floor and trotted over to Baekhyun, where he plopped down in the seat beside him. The boy stared at him like he’d grown a third head. 

“Well, what’d you think of my fighting skills?” Chanyeol prompted, while the brunet stared at him like he’d grown a third head. He grinned at the other’s obvious discomfort. “I’ll admit, it’s been a long time since I fought with a sword instead of my fists, but I’m still pretty impressive. Don’t you think so?” 

Now the boy snapped out of his daze long enough to laugh mockingly and smirk. “I don’t know. You seemed pretty rusty to me.” 

“ _ Rusty? _ ” Chanyeol thought for sure he’d heard the other boy wrong. He was admittedly better with weapons that fired bullets and shot darts from their nozzles, but he was still one of the best swordsman of his generation — he was just a little out of practice, is all. 

Baekhyun shrugged, clearly unfazed by the indignance lacing the taller’s tone. “You fight like an amateur.” 

He stood then, as if he meant to walk away from the conversation, but Chanyeol grabbed him by the arm. His fingers remained on his wrist, just below the markings where his constellation tattoo began. 

“Say that again.” Baekhyun’s eyes flickered down, somewhat warily, to Chanyeol’s fingers, but when he raised them again, there was a hint of challenge gleaming in them. “I said, you fight like an amateur. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was your first time holding a sword. 

That was an invitation if Chanyeol had ever heard one. He leapt from his chair, using his obvious height advantage as a factor of intimidation, as well as the condescending smirk that conquered his lips. “Then how about a duel?” 

“Please,” scoffed Baekhyun with an annoying little roll of his eyes. “There’d be no point. It would be like teaching a five-year old to fight before he even learned to write.” 

“Well,” the taller grinned down at him with the eyes of a devil, “then teach me.” Something happened at that moment — something in the air fizzled, snapped, popped between the two of them. Even after time had passed and the words exchanged between the two had been forgotten, Chanyeol would remember the sensation of his hair standing on end, and the space between them crackling with electricity, as if a rod of lightning had shot out from his chest and ignited itself in the shorter boy. 

He wasn’t even entirely certain when or how the sword appeared in his hand — all he knew was that the blade was immediately met with another, this one gripped by the black-haired boy with a defiant smile on his face. He held his own sword up high, not wavering under the force of Chanyeol’s thrusts forward, and even managed to gain access to several pivotal points that the taller had failed to guard carefully enough. 

Within the first five minutes, Chanyeol was fighting to control his labored breathing, while also attempting to keep up with the litheness of the other boy, whose speedy darts forward and swift slashes with his sword were slowly but surely building him an advantage. 

“You’re pretty good,” Chanyeol eventually had to admit between puffs for air, having given up on the idea of looking cool; yet he still wanted to win, and so he grinned. “But I’m better.”  Baekhyun, who was notably less bothered, merely smiled in response. A moment later,  his blade was pressed against Chanyeol’s Adam’s apple, and he had the taller’s arms pinned behind his back in defeat. 

“What happened to those impressive skills I kept hearing about?” Baekhyun questioned with a quiet little laugh. His voice was surprisingly low, and though he was far too short for his lips to reach Chanyeol’s ear, the taller still felt a tingle run down his spine. 

He chuckled in an attempt to cover his embarrassment — a deep rumble that he knew Baekhyun would feel in his chest. “So you’ve got me beat in swordplay. I’ll admit that.” He glanced over his shoulder at the younger, not caring about the weapon that was still dangerously close to slicing his throat open. “But, like you, I save most of my skills for settings  _ beyond  _ the battlefield.” 

The black-haired boy answered his suggestive smirk with spattered silence as incomprehensible words kept trying to escape from his mouth, which opened and closed like a goldfish. Chanyeol’s torso rose and fell, still trying to catch up on oxygen, and he could feel the 

way Baekhyun’s heart was beating in his chest, pressed right against his back. The boy looked lost for words, as if he was too busy trying to understand the meaning behind Chanyeol’s words to think of an intelligible reply. 

Lucky for him, though, he was saved from having to do so by the return of Jongin, who was visibly shocked upon seeing Baekhyun and Chanyeol pressed so closely together, the sword that the shorter gripped lowered long ago. Jongin didn’t even have the time to question the scene before him, because by the time that Chanyeol had blinked, Baekhyun was racing out of the room without a word. 

Both boys watched him go, and it was Jongin who broke their silence after he’d vanished: “Well. Care to explain what that was all about?” 

“What are you talking about?” Chanyeol asked nonchalantly. He picked up the sword from the ground where Baekhyun had dropped it, before carefully setting it back on the rack. 

Jongin sighed at his friend’s words — he’d known Chanyeol long enough to realize that the simple refusal to talk about the topic was all the information he would get for now. Chanyeol watched his friend’s eyes widen in mild alarm, and he pointed at the taller. 

“Chanyeol. Your neck.” The boy raised a finger to his throat, just below where his jawline ended, and pulled it away in substantial surprise when he felt something wet there — dark red blood, now smeared across his palms, like a child who’d been finger painting. 

Despite the blood on his hands and the light stinging on his neck, Chanyeol had to smile. It seemed as though the youngest Wu son was more dangerous than he’d first believed. 

************ 

Until the day he died, Chanyeol knew that Jongin would be his training partner, both officially and unofficially. Chanyeol had been friends with the tan boy for as far back as his memory allowed him to venture, and he only had the faintest recollection of what life without the other had been like. As a result, they knew each other in and out, even more so than Sehun and Tao; they could label each other’s tendencies, could predict the words they spoke and the moves they made, could read their minds without having to do more than exchange a glance. And they were an unbeatable pair in combat: even Luhan and Yixing had consented that the duo performed better in the two-on-two matches when they fought alongside each other than when they had to face off in the vicious one-on-one duels. Their not-so-secret secret to success had spread like wildfire amongst the other trainees, and now everyone knew to avoid the pair of tall boys whenever combat sessions came up, because when they were together, there was not a soul who could defeat them. 

So then  _ why _ , with a partner as gifted as Jongin, had Chanyeol been spending all of his training time with another boy instead? 

It was a question Chanyeol had asked himself numerous times over the past few days, which were quickly beginning to bleed into a full week. Every day, he somehow allowed himself to be dragged out of bed by the boy with black hair and black eyes, who would appear by his side and chirp with excitement as he discussed all the new techniques he’d be teaching him that day. Chanyeol wasn’t sure when Baekhyun had self-appointed himself as his person teacher 

and trainer — the taller boy had meant that comment only in jest, as a way to rile up the shorter boy — but nobody like Luhan or Junmyeon seemed to protest at the younger’s initiative, so their daily lessons resumed without any qualms from the higher-ups. 

“No, no, you’re doing it all wrong!” Baekhyun was fussing at him for the  _ n _ th time that day, reprimanding him about his posture, or his improper form, or whatever else it was that grinded his gears.  Chanyeol sighed in annoyance. This little brat sure knew how to annoy him. 

“You just said to move my feet faster,” the taller insisted between clenched teeth. “I didn’t say to look like an idiot while doing it,” Baekhyun told him with raised eyebrows. His arms were crossed, as if he felt like he was the biggest boss on the planet, and his lips were puckered into a disapproving frown. He sighed, twirling his finger in the air. “Let’s do it again. Focus on me and the way I’m moving. Look at my sword, and try not to get distracted by what my hands or feet or doing. The rest will come naturally, if you just do that.” 

It was a lot of instructions — a lot of being told what to do, when Chanyeol was used to the very opposite. Never would he have thought he’d be standing here, letting a boy who was a full head shorter than him order him around. And yet Chanyeol still picked up the sword and readied his stance, breath tensed up until the moment that Baekhyun’s sword slashed forward, and he was racing to block the attack as quickly as his reflexes would allow him to. 

For a moment, lost in the fray and the clanging of swords, Chanyeol thought he had finally beaten the shorter. But when his own weapon fell to the ground with a tremendous crash, he realized he’d once again been beaten. 

Immediately, Chanyeol expected a reaction from Baekhyun — a triumphant cheer, or a satisfied smirk, at the very least. For all his gloating he’d done, he certainly deserved it. 

But the boy with black hair did something instead that Chanyeol hadn’t been anticipating at all: he offered the taller a small, cautious smile, and bent down to retrieve his weapon. 

“No worries,” Baekhyun said to him as he handed the sword over. “Let’s try it again. From the top.” 

************ 

It must have been about a week that the four outside boys had been training and staying with the Wus — in which they still hadn’t had time alone to discuss their plan of action — when they received a call that turned the mafia clan upside down. 

The four had been invited to dinner in the Wu household for the second time, with Junmyeon claiming it as a way to celebrate their surviving a full week under rigorous training. All twelve males were gathered around the dinner table, and Junmyeon was rattling off compliments and praises so rapidly that Chanyeol had trouble keeping up with exactly what he’d done to earn so much acclamation; judging by their flustered faces, his friends felt just as stunned as he did. 

The phone suddenly rang in the other room, and Jongdae, ever the enthusiastic and helpful caretaker, hopped up out of his seat faster than a flash of lightning. “I’ll get it!” 

The conversation had transitioned to the topic of how the younger Wu trainees were faring under the new program implemented by Luhan — a process, which the eldest son had to 

admit, was easier said than done — when Jongdae emerged from the parlor, phone clutched in his hand and a pale complexion plastered across his face. 

“Yifan, Junmyeon,” he said with a soft tremble. He held the phone out. “It’s for you.” Without more than a knowing glance shared between them, the pair of leaders stood somberly from the table and took the phone into the other room. Jongdae didn’t follow. 

When the door was shut and the murmur of quiet voices had begun, the ten younger males were left wondering what exactly could have been so bad. 

Baekhyun was the first to ask. He turned to Jongdae eagerly, almost bouncing in his seat. “Jongdae, what was that about?” 

Before the other could even answer him, their conversation was intercepted by Kyungsoo, who scowled at the boy next to him in disapproval. “Baekhyun, do you really think it’s appropriate to ask that?” 

The brunet blinked at him slowly. “Why wouldn’t it be?” “Because,” the other began with an impatient sigh, “it’s none of our business. Do you think they would have taken the phone into the other room if they wanted us to hear what was going on?” 

“I was just asking,” the black-haired boy insisted, though he didn’t seem too upset by Kyungsoo’s words. “I don’t see the harm in that.” 

“It’s okay,” Jongdae intervened before anything else could be said between the two. His smile was back, though a bit dampened. “I didn’t hear much anyway. A woman spoke to me, and all she said was that she needed to speak to the Wu leaders. She said that it was urgent, and that a lot of people had died already.” 

A chorus of sighs could be heard from the other members of the Wu clan, while Chanyeol and his friends remained silent. Personally, Chanyeol had to admit that although he wasn’t ecstatic about the idea of people dying, the concept of mass death was nothing new to him. He’d witnessed hoards of agents of other mafias and companies come crashing down at the hands of him and his friends — the price the four boys paid for wanting to live, instead of suffering the same fate as their families. Death, in other words, didn’t scare Chanyeol — which is why the Wus’ reactions puzzled him. Surely, with as much training and combat as they all prepared themselves for, they were desensitized to ruthless murders by now? 

The ocean of silence that had washed over the room was troubled only by a gentle whispering, which Chanyeol quickly identified as Minseok’s words, spilling softly into Luhan’s ear like always. It was then that Chanyeol realized that, despite having been inhabitants of the Wu cavern for a full week by now, he still had yet to hear the muscular man’s voice, and had only experienced him whispering to Luhan. He had to wonder if the older even knew  _ how  _ to speak at full volume: it was almost as if he, like Luhan, was held back by a handicap. Whatever it was that inhibited him seemed to tie him to Luhan, anchoring the two together like buoys, so that even on the rockiest sea, they wouldn’t be torn apart. 

The mumbling came to an end with Luhan’s resolute nod, and he turned to face Chanyeol and his friends. The intensity of his blank gaze never failed to startle Chanyeol: those eyes just seemed to swim with a sight beyond what the rest possessed, something more than what most people were able to see. It made Chanyeol gulp, and he resisted the urge to shrink back in his seat. 

“I’m afraid we will have to ask you four to return to the training center,” Luhan informed them in a neutral tone, as if he was delivering a news segment. “We have matters to discuss here, and unfortunately, you are still relatively new to our clan.” 

When the four made no move to leave, still processing all that was going on, Luhan smiled at them and tried again: “To put it bluntly, we can’t trust you. Not yet, anyway.” 

“We mean no offense,” Yixing quickly spoke up after Luhan, dimple on display in a polite smile meant to console the four outsiders. “It’s just that this is highly important, and if anything gets out that isn’t supposed to, we don’t want you to be blamed. We know how badly you want to be inducted, so we won’t risk your chances by leaking confidential information to you.” 

Chanyeol nodded now, taking his cue as his little group’s leader: he was slowly beginning to understand the subtle differences between the Wu brothers: Luhan and Yixing were both bred with leader qualities, there was no doubt of that, thanks to their parents’ prominent roles in the clan, yet they had varying styles of leadership. Luhan was easy-going and laid-back when he wanted to be, but would just as easily be blunt and candor when needed; Yixing, on the other hand, was a born diplomat, who never wanted to stir the boat more than needed, and seemed to always be patching up the damage left behind by the others. 

And then there was Baekhyun. Baekhyun, whose eyes were filled with an odd amount of pity as Chanyeol and his friends rose from the table and made their way towards the door. Chanyeol found himself watching the shorter boy’s face, waiting for any signs that might give away more about his character. Was he a leader, like his brothers and parents? No, surely not — he didn’t seem to have the guts for that. Then what was he? What were his fears, and hopes, and dreams? Did he have any fears? Did he dare to hope and dream, when he seemed to be trapped inside of this cave for so long? 

These were the questions that carried Chanyeol out of the Wu household and onto the street, which he aimlessly followed until reaching the training center. Upon entering his room with Jongin, he collapsed onto his bed, and seemed to fall asleep before his head even hit the pillow. 

************ 

_ Sleep, it seemed, wanted to trouble him again that night. His ears were cajoled out of their serene state by a song that he thought he recognized, but wasn’t certain that he could name. He recalled the tune when Sleep appeared to him in all Her glory, wearing a white dress made of silk this time.  _

_ “Chanyeol,” She called to him with an unwavering smile. “Chanyeol.” She said only his name, and yet he understood the command beneath the word. So he pulled himself from his stupor and followed after Her. They were standing at the edge of that great cliff again, hovering on the path of clouds as naturally as heavenly beings would.  _

_ “Chanyeol,” Sleep said, Her voice a whisper on the wind, propelling him closer to the edge. She wanted him to peer over the side, just like last time, he knew.  _

_ But something in him quaked with fear at the idea of the edge. He couldn’t understand exactly why his feet were trying to step backwards — all he knew was that the sense of panic creeping into him seemed to disrupt the tranquil atmosphere that Sleep wanted him to have.  _

_ “Chanyeol.” She shook her head at him, and he understood then: he would have to look, even if he didn’t want to.  _

_ And so he stretched his neck across the void below, gasping at the sight of so many beautiful birds flying through the sky. He smiled and laughed and beamed at them. There was nothing to be afraid of. What harm could come from such exquisite creatures, with wings that reflected the colors of the sunrise back to him?  _

_ “They’re beautiful,” he told the woman in white, though he knew She was already aware. She made no reply, and merely smiled at him, with an expression that seemed to say,  _ Oh? Are they? 

_ Chanyeol frowned for a moment, perplexed by the mysterious aura surrounding Sleep. He turned back to the skyline, much more content to watch the birds spinning through the air than to try to understand a being as powerful as Sleep.  _

_ But all the birds in the sky were gone, and in their place were people. People plummeting through the air, with their invisible wings clipped.  _

_ Chanyeol gasped and turned behind him to Sleep, whose face was as peaceful and passive as ever. Her expression scared him.  _

_ “We have to help them!” he told Her desperately as his hands began to tremble. “They’re going to die if we don’t!”  _

_ She raised her eyebrows at him, though She still wore a smile. Why do you care if they die?  _

Chanyeol lurched from his sleep while screaming, drenched in a cold sweat for the second time that week. His voice was raw and his breathing was ragged, uncontrollably so, and he couldn’t help but glance over to Jongin, afraid he’d woken up his friend with his hollering. Thankfully, the tan boy was draped across his bed, slumbering as peacefully as ever. 

Ordinarily, Chanyeol would have smiled a little at that, but his sore throat carried the reminder of the dream that had plagued his sleep so ruthlessly last night. Still sweating profusely under his covers, Chanyeol threw the comforter off, and when that did nothing to ease the feverish heat encasing his body, he tossed his shirt to the side. He sighed, finally able to bask in the cold air hitting his chest from the vent above. 

A few moments later, his recovery was interrupted by a gentle double-knock on the door, and before he could speak, the intruder was entering the room, biting his lip nervously. 

“I-I’m sorry for barging in,” Baekhyun whispered, eyes widening slightly at the way the other lay shirtless on his bed, “but I heard someone scream a little while ago, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.” 

“Uh, yeah,” Chanyeol was quick to reassure him, scrambling to throw on his shirt so that Baekhyun wouldn’t see the tattoo on his back that seemed to burn with urgency at the exposure. He tried to mask his nerves with a calm smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just had a bad dream, is all.” 

“Ah. I used to get those too,” admitted the younger with a smile that, even in the dark, Chanyeol could tell resembled more of a grimace. 

At his own realization, Chanyeol blinked and regarded the other boy with confusion — Baekhyun usually didn’t dare trying to rouse Chanyeol until the sun was up outside of the cave, but a brief glance at his watch was all that the taller needed to confirm that it was way too early to be awake: 4:37 AM, to be exact. 

Chanyeol growled when he saw the time and glared at the shorter boy, ignoring the odd sensation that had planted itself inside of his chest. “You’d better have a damn good reason for waking me up this early.” 

His answer came in the form of Kyungsoo, who infiltrated the room with the graveness of a drill sergeant and immediately flipped on the light switch. Chanyeol had still been adjusting his eyes to the darkness, and it seemed Baekhyun had too, for that matter, since both males released a cry of pain and covered their faces from the harsh light overhead. 

Kyungsoo was impartial to their pain. “What’s taking so long in here?” he demanded, as if they’d purposely been dragging their feet, just to spite him. 

Chanyeol hissed in pain, barely managing to peep an eye open. “ _ Shit _ , Kyungsoo! Did you have to do that?” 

The other ignored his question, and turned his gaze to Baekhyun, who still seemed to be recovering from the rude awakening. “Make him get up, Baekhyun. We need to leave soon.” 

Ignoring the part where Baekhyun was supposed to “make him” do anything — because that was a highly laughable concept, in Chanyeol’s mind — the tall boy instead focused on the latter part of Kyungsoo’s sentence: “What do you mean? Where are you going?” 

A pointed look was sent from Kyungsoo to Baekhyun, who sighed in defeat. “ _ We  _ are going to search for survivors, and maybe scout out potential allies. The rest are heading to other cities nearby to do the same.” 

Chanyeol’s brow was so furrowed that he began to feel a cramp, and he had to rapidly shake his head to ward off the pain of processing the incoming information. “Wait, when you say ‘we’, you mean —” 

“I mean you and me,” confirmed Baekhyun with a scowl that told him he wasn’t too thrilled about the news either. 

“Well, what are we waiting for?!” the tall boy exclaimed with glee, evidently startling both Baekhyun and Kyungsoo. He ignored their jumpiness and sprung from his bed, grabbing his shoes and cramming a toothbrush in his mouth. He was a whirlwind around the room, packing random items into his backpack and trying to stuff as much food in the bag as possible. It was only Baekhyun’s hand on his arm that made him stop. 

“Chanyeol,” the shorter said with a laugh that broke the worry clouding his face, “we’re not leaving  _ right now _ . We still have to hear the briefing from my parents, so we can know what exactly we’re supposed to do.” 

“And on top of that,” Kyungsoo added in a deep voice as he pushed his way further into the room, “we still have to wake up your friend here.” 

A dimple appeared on Chanyeol’s face when he grinned, mischief brimming in his eyes. “Yeah, good luck with that. Jongin doesn’t wake up until the sun does.” 

The dark-haired boy raised an eyebrow in challenge. “We’ll see about that.” He sauntered over to Jongin, who still looked like an angel despite the drool leaking from his mouth, and promptly slapped him across the face. 

The sound was a thunderous clap that made Jongin jolt up in bed, eyes bright as if he’d just traveled to the depths of hell and had barely returned with his life. His gaze darted to the short, serious-looking boy that stood over him unsmiling. 

“Did you...” he tapered off, wary of accusing the fearsome male. “Did you just  _ slap  _ me?” Kyungsoo was unfazed by the obvious discomfort and disbelief seeping into the walls of the room. “Yes, I did. Get up. We need to go, and we can’t waste our time waiting for sluggards like you.”  He’d said his peace, and appeared to have no further reason for staying, so he marched  from the room like some supreme commander, leaving Baekhyun to gawk at Chanyeol and Jongin, somewhat apologetically. 

“He’s always like that,” he tried to explain, biting his lip as if afraid they would attack him for Kyungsoo’s behavior. “I’m sorry.” 

Chanyeol sighed. It was too early for this. “Get out,” he told Baekhyun in an exhausted tone. 

The shorter seemed to want to protest, but he glanced at Jongin and shut his mouth — out of guilt, most likely. A simple nod and another reminder to be in the main office in no more than ten minutes were the only things he offered before retreating from the room and closing the door behind him. 

Once he was gone, Jongin peeped his sleepy eyes open to stare at Chanyeol, perplexed at everything that had just transpired. “What is going on?” 

“I’ll explain in just a second. For now, go to Sehun and Tao’s room,” Chanyeol ordered gruffly as he began to stuff more items into his backpack: an old razor, his remaining stash of canned foods, a few wads of cash, and a dagger — the one Baekhyun had handed to him while flashing that superior smile of his. 

Moments later, the four boys were running into Sehun and Tao’s room, where it appeared that the younger two had received the same brutal awakening from Kyungsoo as Jongin had. Their eyes were coated in confusion and exhaustion, yet the moment Chanyeol began to speak in a somewhat hushed tone, they were alert and awake. Sehun locked the door behind them. 

“I think there was another attack last night,” Chanyeol told his friends with a blank face. Sehun and Tao were visibly more shocked, though less so than may have been proper etiquette. Tao shook his head, eyes still ringed with fatigue. “Who was it?” 

A sigh escaped Chanyeol. “I’m not sure, but whoever it was, they were almost definitely attacked by Lee Sooman and his clan.” 

Sehun cursed in frustration, while Jongin looked a bit more uncertain. “How do you know it was him? For that matter, how do you know there was an attack at all?” 

“Baekhyun told me that they needed to search for survivors, but I thought about it and, didn’t they already look for survivors? Yifan and Junmyeon, that is.” 

Jongin’s face was etched in hesitation. “Yes, but...” 

“And  _ so _ , they said that it was useless — that the mission was a failure. Why would they send out more people to look for survivors that they already know don’t exist?” 

The others seemed to be catching onto his meaning now, and yet still Jongin doubted. “So you think Lee Sooman struck a second time? In just one week?” 

Chanyeol reached out to grip his friend on either shoulder, eyes steady yet imploring. “Jongin. Trust me on this, okay?” He glanced at his other two friends with just as much solemness. “I have a feeling that they’re going to try to split us up on this trip. I don’t know if we’ll be one-on-one with a Wu member, but it looks like that may be it. Baekhyun said the two of us had to go somewhere, so I’m guessing it’ll be the same with you three.” 

Sehun ran a hand through his tousled hair, already beginning to look distraught. “Split us up? What’s going to happen then? Are they going to kill us?” 

Jongin snorted, though there was very little mirth in it. “They are  _ not  _ going to kill us, Sehun. They don’t even know who we are.” 

“We don’t know that,” Sehun pointed out. “They could just be pretending not to know.” Although he felt just as apprehensive as Sehun about the situation, Chanyeol he was certain that their identities hadn’t been revealed just yet. “We wouldn’t be standing here alive if they knew who we were,” Chanyeol tried to reassure his friend. 

The younger snorted. “Wow, that’s comforting.” Chanyeol rolled his eyes at the other boy — they were wasting time. “Focus, guys. We need a plan of action for if we’re still going to take them down, and I have a feeling that this trip will offer us the opportunity we need.” 

“How so?” Tao asked with a doubtful pout. “Baekhyun mentioned that the Wus needed to find other clans and secure alliances with them.” When his friends’ faces remained impassive and blank, Chanyeol heaved a sigh of hopelessness. “Think about it. We’re headed out to look for another clan, to see if they’ll join forces with the Wus. What better chance to backstab the Wus by forming a  _ second  _ secret alliance with the other clan?” 

A collective gasp escaped from Sehun and Tao, who gazed at Chanyeol as if he were sporting an Einstein-sized brain. He chuckled at their reactions, yet felt deflated when Jongin only frowned at him. 

“How do we know that they’ll form an alliance with us?” he questioned in a quiet voice. “Why wouldn’t they?” Chanyeol countered as he crossed his arms. “We’re willing to leak information to them about one of the biggest mafias in the country. We know the names and faces of the family members, and we even know their top-secret location. They’d be stupid not to accept our offer.” 

Jongin opened his mouth — maybe to agree, maybe to protest; Chanyeol never found out, because the door handle rapidly began shaking for a moment, before the door was flung open and a dark-headed young man with a big smile burst his way in, looking somewhat sheepish. 

“Sorry, guys,” he apologized as he scratched his head. “I should have knocked.” Chanyeol shot a look towards Sehun —  _ I thought you locked the door!  _ The younger shrugged in response —  _ I guess not _ . 

Thankfully, Jongdae was oblivious to their silent conversation, and he just kept on smiling at them. “I just came in to tell you all that the briefing is about to start, and if you don’t want to get on Wu Yifan’s bad side, you’d better start running. Trust me,” he grinned, as if sharing some secret with them, “when he’s angry, he can turn into a real dragon.” 

They took his advice and ran out the door: all except Chanyeol, who skidded to a stop and snapped his fingers in frustration. 

“I forgot something,” he told Jongin, who wore an expression that asked,  _ What the hell are you doing?  _ “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right there.” 

His friend shrugged when Chanyeol waved him to go on ahead and sprinted after the others. The curly-haired boy waited until all of them — Jongin, Sehun, Tao, and Jongdae — had disappeared around the corner, before heading back into the compound, one last glance over his shoulder for good measure. 

************ 

Chanyeol soon joined his friends, who were all fully clad and fully awake now, in a space that resembled a conference room, with comfortable office chairs that he knew Tao would have been tempted to roll around in. He took his place at the lengthy oak table, which seemed to stretch on for an infinity between him and the leaders poised at the opposite end, a large chalkboard perched on the wall behind them. Yifan cleared his throat when Chanyeol finally sat down, and the younger attempted not to shrivel under the taller’s intimidating pair of eyes. 

“Now that we’re all here,” the head of the Wu clan said with a cold look in Chanyeol’s direction, before turning his attention to Junmyeon beside him, “please proceed.” 

Junmyeon started with a small sigh, which was not a very promising indicator for Chanyeol. “As some of you may have heard, the Lee clan has struck once again. This time, they chose to attack the Seo mafia.” 

A collective gasp was heard in the room, even from Chanyeol and his friends — the Seo clan was an extremely prominent organization, and had been one of the leaders in advocating for the mafias to unite against Lee Sooman, all those years ago. The idea that such a powerful man could have been overtaken was bone-chilling, and — 

“The Seos live in... in the Grand Canyon,” murmured Baekhyun numbly, voicing Chanyeol’s exact thoughts. “Don’t they?” 

Junmyeon’s expression was grim when he nodded. “Exactly. Only one hundred miles north of here.” 

An overwhelming silence swallowed up the occupants of the room, each lost in his own thoughts that mirrored the others’. The most dire fact was that the Lees were  _ much  _ closer than anyone had imagined — a distance that by foot would only take their fighting force a day or two to travel. With so many lives gone, it was easy to picture the Wu clan suffering a similar fate. 

At least, that’s what everyone else was thinking about. Chanyeol, however, was more concerned with the knowledge that the clan he had been banking on to form an alliance with — the nearest clan, at least — was all but extinct. He had witnessed first-hand the destruction that came with Lee Sooman’s heavy-handed blows, had experienced how an entire town could be wiped out overnight. The man’s mafia had saw an end 

to the Huang clan and the Oh clan, and had forced almost every one of the Kims to scatter across the country. Though he’d been grateful for the absorption of his friends into the Park clan when they were young, that had been ten years ago, and his goals were different now: now, he cared naught for the safety and well-being of the members of the Wu clan. He didn’t care if Lee Sooman destroyed them too, and he didn’t care if a dozen other clans perished along with them. He saw only the future, an ideal future in which he himself had personally seen to the demise of Wu Yifan and his family — simple payment for the way that they had taken the lives of his own family when he was merely a child. 

“We need to prepare for an attack,” Junmyeon was informing the others when Chanyeol chose to tune back in to the conversation. “Lee Sooman and his forces could be here any day now, and we should be ready.” 

“What do you need us to do?” asked Yixing as he calmly laced his fingers together on the table in front of him. 

The two leaders shared a look before Junmyeon spoke again: “Well, frankly, I would prefer it if you all would stay here and continue improving your training. Most of you still have a long way to go, and you could use the extra time to practice.  _ But  _ —” he went on with a gentle glare when Baekhyun’s mouth fell open in protest, “recently, it has been brought to my attention by  _ someone _ ,” — cue another look at Baekhyun — “that you need more experience in field work. For that reason, Yifan and I have decided to split you up into pairs so that you can be more efficient in your missions.” 

It was no news to Chanyeol’s ears — Baekhyun had told him the same exact thing only ten or fifteen minutes ago, after all — and yet the expression on the short boy’s face was wrought with excitement and anticipation, clued by the anxious little lip bite he was doing. Chanyeol fought the urge to smile. 

Turning around to face the chalkboard, Junmyeon began scrawling words across its surface as he spoke, resembling a grade school teacher going over a lesson. “Yifan and I will head to Flagstaff because it is the closest to the Seos’ headquarters, and we’re not going to put you in more danger than necessary. We’ll search for survivors in the area, on the off chance that Lee Sooman spared any of the Seos. As for Minseok and Luhan...” He paused for a moment to swivel around to where the two sat, side by side like always. “You two obviously graduated from your training long ago, so I had hoped that you would be willing to stay here and run the base while we’re gone. Is that alright?” 

Chanyeol was surprised that Junmyeon had bothered to ask his son — actually  _ asked  _ him, instead of ordering him to do a task without question, like his father would have — but he was even more impressed when Luhan nodded with that distant smile of his almost immediately. 

“Of course. We won’t let you down.” Before Chanyeol could linger on the weight of Luhan’s words much longer, Junmyeon turned back to the board and began scribbling again, this time writing the name of his second son and Sehun. “Yixing and Sehun, head to Camp Verde. Try to gather food that will last a long time. Jongdae and Jongin, you two will do the same, but in Prescott, which is just a bit west of here.” Junmyeon waited for all four heads to nod in understanding before he continued. 

“Kyungsoo, take Tao with you to Sedona to buy more weapons. You know our frequent seller there, so try to get a discount if you can,” he said, more to Kyungsoo than Tao. Chanyeol snickered at the horrified expression that the younger wore, his eyes wide with fear at the idea of being stuck with the foreboding male for so long. 

“And of course, last but not least... Baekhyun and Chanyeol.” Chanyeol watched as Baekhyun’s chest puffed up a little, ready to accept whatever important mission his dad would give him. “I need you two to go to Cottonwood to pick up water bottles. Now — any questions?” 

Whatever air had filled Baekhyun’s lungs all but leaked out, and the smaller was left gaping in disbelief at his parents, struggling to comprehend the words he’d just heard. Chanyeol was a bit appalled too, if he was being honest —  _ water bottles? That  _ was their top-secret mission? To a small town that was only two hours walking distance? 

Baekhyun raised his hand slowly, in a mixture of caution and confusion. “That’s it?” All attention was drawn to the nimble boy, which only increased his nervousness after the incredulous look his parents gave him. “What do you mean, Hyunnie?” 

The boy frowned at that. “It’s just... This is my first mission,  _ ever _ . I thought you were going to tell us to set up defenses around the edge of the mountain, or try to find allies to help us, or something like that. Maybe even fight some of the Lees ourselves, but you just want us to get more  _ water? _ ” 

“We need water to live, Hyunnie,” Junmyeon reminded him in a gentle tone, like he was explaining something simple to a toddler. “Lee Sooman could cut off our water supply from the mountain, or he could barricade us inside the mountain. We don’t know how long it will be before we have access to a fresh water supply again.” 

“I understand that,” Baekhyun was quick to say, though he was clearly frustrated by the situation. “But why does it have to be  _ me?  _ Why can’t it be some of the younger trainees? I’ve been training for seven years to defend myself and attack ‘the enemy’, but why bother teaching me things like that if you’re just going to send me on missions — no,  _ grocery errands _ , like this one!” 

By the time he’d finished speaking, Baekhyun had risen from his chair, and his small hands were clenched into fists by his side. He had managed to keep his expression relatively blank, but under the severe look of disappointment his family was giving him, it began to wrinkle, with a single tear sliding down the lines now creasing his face. 

“Baekhyun,” — it was Kyungsoo who spoke first, surprisingly — “take Chanyeol with you. It’s time to go.” 

The words hung in the air with a frightening permanence to them: the conversation was closed, and there would be no further discussion of Baekhyun’s activities. He would have to do them. Any surprise that Chanyeol had felt at the Wu parents being lenient with their children, like he’d seen between Junmyeon and Luhan, all but dissipated. He didn’t know why he felt uncomfortable with the situation, but something about the way everyone in the room was regarding Baekhyun with a set of stern, unyielding eyes didn’t sit right with him. 

And so he rose from his seat, backpack slung over one shoulder, and walked towards Baekhyun to place a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go,” he told the younger, a gentle suggestion in a room full of harsh commands. 

Baekhyun sniffed at him, but didn’t protest as he followed him out. Chanyeol wasn’t sure exactly where they were going, but when nobody in the room stopped the two of them from leaving, he knew it was too late to turn around and ask for directions. He knew the others would be heading out on their missions in a matter of minutes anyway, so it was best just to get out of that mountain while they could, and save some face. 

The timid sniffling from behind Chanyeol was rather distracting as they exited the pitch-black entrance corridor, though he didn’t bother to check on the shorter until they were fully out of the old mine tunnel and standing in the clearing at the base of the mountain. 

“You okay?” he cautiously asked of the other. He wanted his concern to sound believable to the trusting younger boy, so he added a smile for good measure. 

The boy ignored his efforts to seem sincere, and wiped some snot from his face using the sleeve of his hoodie — a big gray one this time, which Chanyeol had secretly stolen once because it was massive enough to fit his broad frame. Now though, judging by the way Baekhyun’s pitiful little tears dripped one by one onto the soft material, he’d never be borrowing it ever again. 

“I’m so annoyed with them,” huffed Baekhyun, more to himself than Chanyeol, as he hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders. “But fine. If they want water bottles, we’ll get so many damn bottles of it that they’ll never want to drink water ever again.” 

Chanyeol snorted at the shorter boy’s words, though he had to admit that he liked his feisty spirit. Being the absolute best at whatever you had to do — it was an idea that had been at the forefront of Chanyeol’s mind since the day his family had died, when he’d resolved that he would never bear the brunt of another person’s actions ever again. It was a shame that a boy who held such similar passion as him would have to die soon, but there was no way around Chanyeol’s desire to see an end to the Wu family. 

Shoving all of these thoughts to the back of his brain, Chanyeol trudged over to the edge of the clearing where his truck was still parked from the week before. He hadn’t driven it since that first day he and his friends had entered the Wu headquarters, yet he hadn’t been particularly concerned about anyone stealing it. It wasn’t like it had belonged to him in the first place, anyway. 

“What are you doing?” Baekhyun questioned when Chanyeol opened the door and began to climb inside. 

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Chanyeol was unable to keep himself from saying. “We’re going to Cottonwood, so hop in.” 

Baekhyun snorted. “We don’t need to drive if can walk there in two hours. Besides, the exercise will be good for us.” 

Chanyeol stared at the shorter boy like he was stupid. “We already exercise every single day. And why would we walk for two hours, if we could be there in fifteen minutes with a car?” 

The boy in the hoodie blinked at him, and Chanyeol felt the wave of satisfaction with knowing that he had rendered the other male speechless. But, annoyingly yet not surprisingly, Baekhyun merely chose not to refute his argument, and instead started meandering out into the woods without a word. 

“Hey! Where are you going?” he called after the shorter in annoyance. 

“To Cottonwood!” Baekhyun shouted back with a sarcastic wave over his shoulder. “See you there.” 

_ Damn it _ , grumbled Chanyeol mentally as he glared after the small boy’s frame.  _ He’s just as stubborn as I am. Maybe more so.  _

Chanyeol had no choice, really — he had a car, but he didn’t know his way around this half of Arizona like a Wu would, and he certainly didn’t feel like crawling back into the mountain to tattle on Baekhyun to Junmyeon and Yifan. Still muttering spiteful words to himself, Chanyeol clambered out of the car and plodded after the other boy. 

When Chanyeol finally caught up to the brunet — who was undoubtedly quicker on his feet than the taller — all signs of Baekhyun’s annoyance had faded away, replaced by a sort of childlike wonder as he peered up at the trees around him. There was nothing special to see, yet Baekhyun was still smiling stupidly up at the trees, as if the secrets of the universe were held there. 

Finally, Chanyeol’s curiosity caught hold of him, and he had to ask: “What’s so interesting to you about those trees?” 

For a moment, Baekhyun looked startled, like he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to, but then he laughed off the sheepishness and shook his head. “Not the trees. The sky.” 

It was still almost completely dark, but the pitchy blackness of the night sky was beginning to fade into a more subdued shade of blue that resembled the sea. Swarms of stars were still swimming in its depths, and the few patches of sky that were visible beyond the canopy of trees seemed to blink with the delicate light that dotted the vast expanse. It truly was breathtaking to behold — but of course, Chanyeol would never admit such a thing to the shorter boy. 

They were coming down the mountain, having just escaped the dark clutches of the forest, and the faintest hint of sunlight was beginning to peep up beyond the hills on the horizon, though just barely. The sight of the sun was comforting to Chanyeol somehow: perhaps it was because he’d grown tired of being stuck inside of a mountain for a week, or maybe it was simply because he’d always like the light better than the dark. 

“Look!” Baekhyun suddenly cried, pointing his finger up the sky. “Up there!” The urgency in his tone was strong enough for Chanyeol to actually look up (something he never would have done otherwise), yet all he saw wore more stars, and maybe something like a satellite passing over head. “Where? I don’t see anything.” 

“Over there,” Baekhyun insisted even more frantically. He placed a palm on either side of Chanyeol’s face, the chill of his hands making the taller boy’s cheeks feel flushed and fiery. He said nothing as Baekhyun directed his head to tilt back more, so that he was staring straight up. “You see that?” 

Chanyeol blinked, squinting into the patchwork of stars spread across the sky. “A constellation?” 

“Not just any constellation!” Baekhyun exclaimed with slight-exasperation lacing his tone. He rolled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt to expose his forearm. “There! Can you see that? Wait a second, it’s too dark. Let me get my...” he trailed off as he began to dig into his backpack for a while, finally emerging with a flashlight in hand. He held it up triumphantly. “Aha! Now, look.” 

The light shone down on his smooth skin, illuminating the pattern of dots imprinted there. Chanyeol recalled what Baekhyun had told him about the tattoo: that it was an image of the constellation Apus, referring to a bird of paradise. At the time, Chanyeol had asked Baekhyun why he’d chosen such an appellation, and at the time, the boy had treated him with a sly wink and some suggestive comment — but now, studying the profile of the wiry boy who was practically drowning in the size of his own sweatshirt, Chanyeol had a feeling that there was far more behind his decision than a simple sexual innuendo. 

Breaking himself from his own onslaught of thoughts, Chanyeol glanced back up at the constellation that Baekhyun had pointed out, composed of four stars that met on a zig-zag track. “So that’s Apus?” 

“Yep!” replied the other boy eagerly. He glanced over at Chanyeol, buzzing with excitement. “Remind me what your appellation is again.” 

“Oh, uh, Phoenix.” Chanyeol cleared his throat; for some reason, he felt a little awkward talking about it, but Baekhyun had confessed that it was a rather intimate concept, so maybe that’s why. He suddenly chortled at a thought that appeared in his mind, and though he tried to cover it up, Baekhyun was quick to pick up on the sound. 

“What’s so funny?” the other boy demanded, clearly not keen on being left out of a good joke. 

“Nothing. It’s just —” Chanyeol laughed once more. “A phoenix is a symbol of fire, and power, and war. But your name, Apus, is...” 

“A bird of paradise,” Baekhyun agreed with a slight chuckle. “It sounds pretty weak in comparison to yours, doesn’t it?” 

Chanyeol said nothing to that — what was he supposed to say? The silence dragged on for too long for him to think of a suitable response, and the conversation died, though he could still sense Baekhyun’s gaze on him for a moment longer. He refused to look at the shorter, and he could breathe a little easier when he turned away. 

Baekhyun’s eyes began to scan the sky overhead, zealous with joy and early-morning energy. “Where is the Phoenix constellation, by the way?” 

Almost as if a part of him had been ignited by the name, the space between Chanyeol’s shoulder blades began to burn slightly, though he ignored it because he knew it was all in his head. “You can’t see it in summer. Only later in the year.” 

“Really?” Baekhyun frowned, as if he was genuinely disappointed by the news. “What’s the best time to view it?” 

The question opened the floodgates for an inundation of memories that washed upon the forbidden shores of Chanyeol’s mind: birthday parties from when he was a kid, frolicking in his family’s backyard with his friends by his side, his older siblings sprinting after him and hollering at the top of their lungs, while his own lungs thrived off of the lack of oxygen, as does any child’s when the chase is afoot. Those had been happy times, blissful and carefree, when his parents hadn’t cared about overthrowing Lee Sooman, and the greater good hadn’t seemed to matter at all. He remembered an ugly party hat being forced onto his head, and someone — his eldest sister, perhaps — smashing his face into his cake. He smiled at the recollection. “November.” 

Baekhyun hummed thoughtfully at that, completely oblivious to all the birthday memories that month recalled for Chanyeol, then he gasped loudly enough to pull the taller out of his reverie. “ _ Hey!  _ That’s only three months away!” 

Chanyeol glared at him — the shorter had nearly afforded him a heart attack. “Yeah, so?” 

The brunet rolled his eyes, as if Chanyeol was the problematic one of the pair. “ _ So _ , your induction is in three months! It coincides perfectly, don’t you think?” 

Truthfully, Chanyeol hadn’t considered that, though it did seem a bit appropriate now that he thought about it. He imagined what it would be like to see the constellation again, the one that his dad had always pointed out to him while they’d lain on the hammock in the yard. He wondered if it would feel as magical as it had then, or if that was just the flimsy filter of childhood distorting his perspective. 

Then Chanyeol recalled that it wouldn’t matter because he wouldn’t be inducted in three months — he was never going to spend an entire quarter of a year with the Wus, just to be part of some silly ceremony. It certainly wouldn’t take that long to earn their trust either: with the way things were running now, already partaking in missions during their first week, it was obvious that the Wus didn’t suspect a thing of Chanyeol and his friends. 

His eyes, for some reason, were drawn to Baekhyun. The boy stood a few feet away from him, squarely in the middle of the path they’d been taking down the side of the mountain. He looked more like a penguin today than a sparrow, what with the way his oversized hoodie hid his scrawny limbs from view. The brunet’s gaze was fixated on the sky above them, mouth hung open slightly in wonder. Chanyeol somehow suspected that although this wasn’t Baekhyun’s first time seeing a star-studded sky, the boy resonated with the immensity of the cosmos each time that he viewed them. It made Chanyeol wonder, made him think about what went on inside that pint-sized boy’s pea-sized brain. What did Baekhyun see when he looked at the sky? What did he feel? How many times in his life had he just stood there beneath the sky and absorbed it all, reveling in the splendor and beauty on display before his eyes? How many more times would he be able to do that, before Chanyeol killed him? 

For the first time since he’d formed his plan, Chanyeol didn’t feel like thinking about the other boy’s death. 

He knew he would have to kill Baekhyun. The need to end the other’s life ran deeper than Chanyeol’s desires, as it was something ingrained in his blood that he  _ must  _ do in order to avenge his family. Ultimately, that’s what it would come down to: Chanyeol or Baekhyun, Baekhyun or Chanyeol. The world, despite its vast forests and massive mountains and expansive skies, would never have enough room for the orphaned boy and the son of his enemy.  But maybe — just for right now, right in this moment — there was room for both of them  beneath that big beautiful blanket of stars. 

************ 

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol would suddenly say to Baekhyun later, long after the sun had arisen and the stars had returned to the comfort of their cosmic quilt. “I thought about it, and I realized you’ve never seen real stars.” 

The boy’s eyebrows would quirk with curiosity, yet that little superior smile of his would prompt Chanyeol to continue nonetheless. “Oh, I haven’t?” 

Chanyeol shook his head decisively. “Nope. You’re still too close to city life here.” He glanced up at the sky as if to prove his point, but there was only a timid sun creeping through the sky. “There’s a place I know, called Devil’s Bridge, and it’s the perfect place for star-gazing. It’s not too far from here, actually.” 

Baekhyun had only been half-listening until then, and so the sight of his lips splitting into a smile was nothing short of blinding. “Well then why don’t we go there?” 

Plastering a passive expression across his face, Chanyeol merely shrugged. “Hmm, we’ll see. Maybe if you behave.” 

He kept walking for a moment, until his path was blocked by the black-haired boy and his oversized hoodie. 

“Promise me,” the small boy told him firmly, eyes resolute. Chanyeol couldn’t help it — he grinned down at the other. “Fine. If you can go an entire day without sassing me, then I’ll take you to Devil’s Bridge sometime.” 

A slender finger pointed at Chanyeol’s chest accusingly. “You promise?” 

“I promise.” 

* * *

_ “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown, but longed for still.”  _

**PART I, chapter v**

The mid-morning sun was beating down brutally on the pair by the time they arrived at Cottonwood, albeit relatively cool for an August day in the middle of Arizona. The town that they entered looked like at least a dozen other places that Chanyeol had fled to while on the run with his friends, and yet he found himself paying more attention to everything that he passed. Maybe it was because he had to be more alert with the potential threat of Lee forces converging nearby, or perhaps the frustrating attentiveness with which Baekhyun was admiring the town was rubbing off on him. They had spotted a grocery store at the end of Main Street, and though they were making progress, Baekhyun seemed determined to stop every five seconds to marvel at a painted mailbox, a dog taking a piss, or a bald man reading a newspaper. 

“Look at that!” Baekhyun’s eyes grew wide as he pointed at a beige-colored, block-shaped building across the street from where they were. 

Chanyeol squinted at its edifice and sighed wearily. “Baekhyun, that’s a hospital.” The shorter interrupted his own ogling to roll his eyes at the statement. “I  _ know  _ what it is, I’m just pointing it out. I’ve never seen one before.” 

Although he’d been about to remind Baekhyun of his promise not to be rude to him all day (they would later argue about whether or not rolling your eyes was considered rude, or simply playfully), Chanyeol was somewhat stunned by the shorter’s words. Never seen a hospital? How sheltered must this kid have been? 

He peered at the brunet warily out of the corner of his eye. “So... how often do you actually leave Jerome?” 

A mirthless chuckle followed his question as they made their way down the street. “A better question would be how often do I get to leave the cave.” Anticipating Chanyeol’s next question, Baekhyun turned to regard him with a wry smile. “And the answer to that is, almost never.”  Side-stepping around a motorcycle that someone had chosen to park in the middle of  the sidewalk, Chanyeol frowned slightly. He thought back to the way Junmyeon had spoken to Baekhyun earlier that day, as if he was coddling a child, or how his brothers seemed to leave him out of any important conversations they had, whether it was intentional or not. It was a strange dynamic the Wu family seemed to have, and he couldn’t quite figure it out. 

“But that day I saw you in Sedona...” Baekhyun snorted. “You think I was allowed to do that? Don’t you remember how angry Kyungsoo was when he found out? I sneak out as often as possible, but it never comes without consequences,” he said softly as he looked away, choosing to look at a nearby coffee shop instead of meeting Chanyeol’s gaze. 

_ It never comes without consequences _ . Chanyeol wanted so badly to ask what that meant. But he never got the chance, for out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a blurry image moving across the rooftop of the shops across the street. 

It was a clear summer day, helping Chanyeol to focus on the figure dressed in an all-white garb, but whoever it was moved with frightening speed, and had disappeared before Chanyeol could even blink. 

The tall boy frowned — it seemed unlikely that a random civilian in a town like Cottonwood would choose to hop across the tops of buildings in their spare time, or where a blinding-white body suit either, for that matter. 

He chose to say nothing, however, and he continued to listen as Baekhyun prattled on about every car that zoomed by. The street corner where they stood was directly across the road, only an intersection away. Chanyeol sighed, knowing that it would be a bit of a chore to find some way to transport hundreds of water bottles back to town. He knew they should’ve taken the truck. 

With all the light-colored cars whizzing up and down the street, it would have been easy to miss another flash of white, but Chanyeol detected the figure no less, located to the back-right a bit of his vision. He turned slowly, though already anticipating that the person in all-white would have vanished. He calmly turned back to the intersection, while Baekhyun jabbered about which orange came first — the fruit, or the color. 

“Baek,” he said to the shorter in a quiet, tense voice that immediately made the brunet cut off his rambling. “I think we’re going to have to come back later for those water bottles.” 

He had expected the other male to ask a lot of annoying questions, or be less than subtle in his attempt to look natural, but to his credit, the dark-haired boy simply nodded and stayed silent, seeming a bit more cognizant of their surroundings now. 

Across the street, the crosswalk sign flashed the walking symbol — a white stick-figure — and Chanyeol swallowed. He wasn’t nervous, not by any means, but he always preferred to be able to confront his enemies head-on. Playing cat and mouse games had never been his forte. 

“When we get to the other side of the street,” murmured Chanyeol, leaning down close enough to speak in Baekhyun’s ear, “don’t go to the grocery store. Go back into the street, and immediately start running.” 

He pulled away, witnessing the doubtful look that the other boy wore, though thankfully he didn’t protest. The pair reached the curb and, while the rest of the crowd they were crossing with continued to travel on the sidewalk, both Baekhyun and Chanyeol leapt into the left side of traffic, which thankfully was halted at a red light. They raced down the road as swiftly as they could, and for a moment, Chanyeol imagined that he seemed rather insane, sprinting through the oncoming lanes of traffic. 

But then he heard the sound of feet hitting the pavement behind him and Baekhyun, and he knew he still had some shred of sanity left after all. 

The footsteps would have been nearly silent to anyone else, but Chanyeol had spent an entire decade memorizing the different signs and clues that pointed to who his enemies were, so it was easy to recognize the sound of a hostile chase when he heard it. A simple glance over his shoulder was all that he needed to confirm his theory: not too far away behind him was a swarm of white-clad warriors, hurdling over cars and somersaulting through the air with ease. It seemed silly to say they looked like ninjas, but with all except their eyes wrapped in ivory-colored cloth, the term seemed fairly appropriate. 

Chanyeol fixated his gaze forward — he could already feel himself slowing down from looking behind for too long — and caught Baekhyun trying to get a glimpse of their pursuers too. 

“Don’t look!” he barked at the brunet while they avoided a particularly wide SUV. “It’ll only slow you down!” 

Baekhyun made no reply, his silence sufficing as a good-enough answer. The road they were on seemed to be located on the edge of town, for Chanyeol could already spot the end of it a few blocks away. Past the dead-end was a grove of tall towering trees, somewhat sparse in proximity but thick enough to provide coverage if they needed it. He huffed in deliberation: on the one hand, it would be better to lure their attackers into the woods, where no civilians passing by would be able to witness their actions or get in the way. However, no witnesses could also mean no one to identify their bodies if they were injured or killed. 

“Are we going into the woods?” Baekhyun called over his shoulder, and it took Chanyeol a moment to respond, having just realized what a fast runner the other boy was, if he was able to surpass Chanyeol and his long legs. 

“Yeah, keep going,” he ordered while being sure to control his breathing. He doubted if Baekhyun would even listen to him, though he was grateful when, once again, the boy didn’t argue with his decision. 

The forest was upon them before they knew it, and the white ninjas (as Chanyeol was now prone to dub them) hadn’t fallen behind at all; if anything, a single glance over his shoulder told Chanyeol that they had closed the gap between them significantly, and were now hot on their tails.  The Park boy’s eyes frantically scanned the grove of trees surrounding them as he  desperately searched for a proper place to duel: a close clump of bushes and shrubs was no place to get caught up in a fight, nor was a mountain base, which offered no room for retreat. Up ahead, he was relieved to see a clearing about the size of a basketball court; without having to communicate anything to Baekhyun, the shorter boy streered his course towards the glade, the figures in white nearly nipping at their heels. 

Chanyeol grabbed Baekhyun’s hand when they reached the middle of the field and whirled him around so that they stood back-to-back in the center, the ninja-like figures immediately forming a tight ring around them. 

“Damn it,” he heard Baekhyun whisper, his voice quivering with fear and frustration. “Damn it, this wasn’t supposed to happen!” 

The taller wanted to snort at the naivety of that statement. “It never is.” He could imagine Baekhyun resisting the urge to roll his eyes at him, but the shorter boy was clearly more preoccupied by the vicious circle of attackers. “Who  _ are  _ they?” 

Chanyeol’s eyes darted from face to face, glossing over their jagged swords to search for clues, but he saw only dark, soulless eyes hidden beneath the hoods. There seemed to be about two dozen of them, and they all were wrapped in white material, as he’d noted before, but what he hadn’t seen was the symbol stamped on the front of each person’s chest. Squinting, Chanyeol saw that it was a sun, outlined in simple black markings, with no other decorations or words to indicate its meaning. 

But Chanyeol didn’t need more than that: he knew exactly who these people were. 

“They’re from the Lee clan,” he murmured to Baekhyun, followed by a light gasp from the other boy. “Their best fighters, in fact.” 

Such knowledge had clearly struck a chord with Baekhyun; Chanyeol could see the brunet trying his best not to shake as he unsheathed the pair of daggers tucked away at his hips. An odd instinct bubbled up inside of Chanyeol then, to wipe away the terror rolling over Baekhyun, the irridicate the fear that they were about to die. 

Park Chanyeol had already died once. He was not going to die again. Not here, not now. “Hey, Power Rangers!” Chanyeol bellowed with a wide, shit-eating grin on his face. “How’s it going?” 

Baekhyun whirled around to regard him with eyes blown wide open with disbelief, delivering a good smack to his chest just for good measure. “ _ What the hell are you doing? _ ” he hissed with a frantic glance back towards the white figures, as if afraid they would creep up on him at any given moment. 

“What, you don’t think they look like Power Rangers?” joked Chanyeol in a voice loud enough for everyone to be heard. He turned his attention back to the white ninjas and waved at them in an exaggerated gesture of friendliness. “Hope you guys aren’t too tired after all that running, because we’re ready to kick your asses!” 

Another thwack against Chanyeol from his shorter companion. He just smiled and grabbed his daggers from his pocket. A dozen more weapons were stowed away in his backpack he wore, but he was so comfortable with the smaller blades now that they had become something of an extension of him. He thrust the knife in his left hand forward, as if beckoning a volunteer to approach, and he was met with an immediate response. 

It was uncertain which side attacked first, or which individual led the charge in drawing their weapons, but within the first few seconds, Chanyeol and Baekhyun were isolated in a tornado of swords and daggers that threatened to infiltrate their boundaries at any moment. With every blow that Chanyeol achieved, or every attacker that he managed to strike down, it seemed as if two more rose in his place, wielding weapons that were increasingly more terrifying as they continued to duplicate. The tall boy avoided looking at their faces if possible, because it was the eyes that always made him queasy: it was the eyes that always reminded him that the chest he drove his dagger into belonged to a human, that the corpse he had just slaughtered had once been a child, like him. 

With two dozen against two, it hadn’t seemed like much of a fair fight, yet somehow, slowly but surely, the numbers of the white ninjas began to dwindle down, one by one. Chanyeol received a slash against his arm and a slice on his leg from each one, though he failed to feel the pain with so much satisfaction filling him up. The curly-haired boy had just jabbed his last knife into the final attacker on his side of the field, effectively ending the man’s life, when he heard a scream from the other side of the field. 

Chanyeol spun to see what the commotion was about: across the glade, which was now strewn with fallen bodies and their fallen weapons, Baekhyun was experiencing serious trouble. Though he had managed to ward off most everyone from his half of the circle, three more fighters remained, and they had him surrounded in a tight formation, where they took turns stabbing at him and punching him. The black-haired boy was able to dodge most of their hits, but as his attackers continued with their assault, Chanyeol watched Baekhyun’s movements 

become more sluggish and sloppy. He frowned; it was clear the exhaustion and pain was getting to the shorter boy, deadening his reflexes. 

In their series of strikes, both Chanyeol and Baekhyun had drifted far away from their original starting point in the center, so the pair were now more than half a field apart. Chanyeol was quick to evaluate the situation: he knew that if he ran to Baekhyun to help him, he would lose the element of surprise he now held over the three hitmen, and it was also likely that he wouldn’t even get there in time. And it wasn’t as if Chanyeol could throw a dagger from this distance and hope to hit Baekhyun’s attackers, even as skilled as he had become in wielding small weaponry. There was also the possibility that he would end up harming Baekhyun if he attempted such a risky feat. 

With time slipping through his fingers like sand through a sieve, Chanyeol realized he had one option left. He dug through his backpack, sorting through the stock of weapons heaped haphazardly into the bag. His fingers closed around the cool metal object in his sights, and he stood up.  Baekhyun screamed; a knife the size of Chanyeol’s forearm was sticking out of his  shoulder blade. 

Chanyeol raised the object he gripped in his hand, and pulled the trigger.  _ Bang _ . One of the figures in white — the one who had stabbed Baekhyun — fell to the ground, and didn’t get up again. 

_ Bang, bang _ . Chanyeol didn’t even blink as the other two figures collapsed after the first, their perfect white forms now stained in bright red blood. 

The glade was silent and still in the moments that followed, as if the whole forest was taking a deep breath from the exhausting sequence of events. Chanyeol, however, took no time to catch his breath as he sprinted over to where Baekhyun, too, had slumped to the ground, a small gray dot in a big field of green. 

“Baek, are you okay?” Chanyeol huffed as he plopped down next to the boy on the grass. The sun had risen to its peak in the sky now, and its rays were merciless on the back of the curly-haired boy’s neck. He ignored the potential for sunburn, which just a week ago had agitated him so much, and instead began attending to the weapon still lodged in his back. Upon further examination, Chanyeol determined that the knife was not actually striking his shoulder blade, but merely brushing it; the real damage was just below the bone, where it sloped down to an angle. Blood was trickling from the wound, though not at a rate that would mean something critical had been punctured. 

Chanyeol breathed a sigh of relief, which Baekhyun seemed to interpret as a sound of wariness. “Is it bad?” he whispered, eyes scrunched shut. 

“Well, you have a knife stuck in your back,” Chanyeol couldn’t help but say, even though he knew now was not the time for joking. So he quickly changed his tactic, and laid a reassuring hand on the other boy’s shoulder. “But you’re going to be fine. Don’t worry, okay?” 

The brunet peeped an eye open, as if to check if Chanyeol was lying. He scanned his face for any signs of trickery, those big black eyes trembling with pain, though there was a strong resilience behind the fear. 

This impressed the taller boy, and as he carefully helped Baekhyun remove the knife and messily bandage it with a spare T-shirt he’d packed in his bag, he realized something else: the Wu child may have been a stubborn, annoying, meddling, self-righteous, clueless, tiny, useless son of a bitch...

...but at least he wasn’t a quitter.

************

As it turns out, the two boys really should have taken the truck instead of walking. They both agreed that with a likelihood of more henchmen from the Lee clan prowling Cottonwood, it was better to ditch the town and head to another nearby city; otherwise, they would not only be turning up empty-handed without completing their mission, but also leading the Lee forces directly to the Wu headquarters.

They had collectively settled on Sedona as their new destination, but while Baekhyun had wanted to walk the entire distance, Chanyeol had shook his head in stubborn refusal. “No way,” he had told the shorter boy, over and over again. “I am not walking more than six hours, especially with you in such a bad condition. Jongin and Kyungsoo are probably in Sedona by now, anyway. We’re calling them to come pick us up.”

“None of us have phones,” Baekhyun had pointed out with a pout set on his pretty pink lips. “And I’m fine! I feel great.”

Chanyeol eyed the now-bloodied shirt wrapped around Baekhyun’s midriff in a makeshift bandage, and sighed. The black-haired boy was clearly not fine, but judging by the resolute look shining in his eyes, it was even more obvious that he would not be accepting help in any form or fashion. _This is my mission_ , his gaze seemed to tell Chanyeol. _Let me do something right for once._ Chanyeol couldn’t care less about the Wu child or what he wanted. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to crush the other boy’s determined spirit. So he shut his mouth, and forced himself to be silent as he led the way in front of Baekhyun, ignoring the brunet’s whimpers of pain.

Seven hours later, when the pair were trudging through the rain up a steep mountainside, coyotes wailing in the distance and lightning cracking across the sky, Chanyeol would regret his decision not to protest more.

“In hindsight, maybe this wasn’t the best idea ever!” Baekhyun shouted over the sound of rain rushing down the mountain, and he somehow had the nerve to laugh. It was too dark for Baekhyun to notice the deploring glare that Chanyeol sent him, but he certainly heard the rueful curses the taller directed his way. “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Baekhyun called out to him a while later, when the thunderstorm had begun to die down a little, though the rain pellets still beat against the hoods of their sweatshirts. “I feel like we’ve been walking in circles for the past hour.” Lucky for Baekhyun, Chanyeol actually did know where he was headed. He and his family used to camp quite frequently in Coconino National Forest, and though the cougars and coyotes had been a bit bothersome, they had never dissuaded him from trekking up and down the treacherous hills with his siblings in their spare time. He never would have guessed that he would be returning to his family’s treasured campsite with the son of the people who had killed them; he briefly wondered what his father, or his mother, would say if they knew — what would he, little seven-year-old Chanyeol, have said at such a sight?

“Not much further now,” Chanyeol said after realizing he’d been silent too long. He cleared his throat awkwardly and pointed in the distance, towards a series of massive sandhills seated in a neat row, as if a giant had come along and scooped the dirt there into tidy piles. “You see those mountains over there? We’ll go past them, and then set up camp for the night.” Hearing that, Baekhyun livened his step — grimacing slightly because of the pain in his back — and caught up to Chanyeol, eyes wide despite the rain dripping into them.

“We’re not going to Sedona?”

The curly-haired boy shook his head. “Not tonight. We’ll pick up supplies tomorrow, but it’s too late in the day to travel further. We would never make it back to headquarters in time, so we might as well rest, and try to treat your wound.” Baekhyun frowned at that.

“But I told you, I’m fine!”

Rolling his eyes, Chanyeol shrugged and picked up his pace, fully knowing that it would be difficult for the shorter to match his large steps. “You mean you don’t want to see Devil’s Bridge?” Though he had expected Baekhyun to scurry and catch up with him, the other boy’s footsteps suddenly stopped, and he turned to see what was wrong.

“Devil’s Bridge?” Baekhyun repeated, eyebrows furrowed and mouth agape. Chanyeol shrugged once more to appear nonchalant.

“Yeah. I thought you said you wanted me to take you.” For nearly the first time ever, Baekhyun was speechless. “I... I mean, yeah, but... I didn’t think —”

“You didn’t think I’d actually do it?” Chanyeol let loose an exaggerated sigh. “I’m so hurt. I thought we were best friends, but clearly you don’t trust me at all.” Slowly, as if waking up from a long nap, a grin spread across Baekhyun’s face, and all signs of pain or discomfort were removed from his features. The smile was odd, and seemed a bit brighter than usual, though the boy said nothing else and just kept walking. Chanyeol figured he was just eager to arrive at the bridge, so he, too, continued to climb. Within thirty minutes, the pair had arrived at the peak of one of the hills, and began to edge out onto the bridge, which resembled an elevated arm extending from the mountain’s head. At its most narrow, the bridge was about five feet in width, and its widest, ten. It seemed to be a little less than fifty feet long, so Baekhyun and Chanyeol were standing in the center of the arch in no time at all.

The taller watched as Baekhyun peered over the edge and grinned, hands gripping the rocky material to steady himself: “Wow. We’re pretty high up, aren’t we?”

Chanyeol chuckled at that. “I’d say so. High up enough to paralyze you if you fell — maybe even kill you.” Baekhyun looked to Chanyeol to see if he was joking — he’d learned by now that the tall boy was rarely serious — but he must have recognized the rare presence of caution in Chanyeol’s expression, and he backed away slowly. “Now,” Chanyeol clapped his hands together once, “let’s get set up. Our sleeping bags should stretch across this part here, and we can put the campfire right here... Do you know how to make a campfire?” he asked, glancing up at Baekhyun.

The brunet scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Do I know how to make a campfire? Do I know how to make a campfire?” Chanyeol’s scrutinizing gaze swept over his form.

“Well, do you?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought.” He tossed his backpack towards Baekhyun and stood up, beginning to head back to the line of trees nearby. “Start setting up out stuff. I’ll make our fire.” In Baekhyun’s defense, by the time that Chanyeol returned from his wood-scavenging venture, Devil’s Bridge had been converted into a very cozy space for the two of them to spend the night (considering that they were in the wilderness and were sleeping on top of a giant rock). Baekhyun must have noticed the slightly-impressed look that passed over Chanyeol’s features, because he grinned triumphantly and cackled gleefully as the other as he began to arrange the sticks and logs into a steeple shape for the fire. The pair had brought along some canned foods and granola bars in case of an emergency — which, Chanyeol supposed, this was — and unfortunately that was all that they would be able to eat until they arrived in Sedona the next morning.

There was a bit of a chill leftover from the thunderstorm earlier, and the ground was still somewhat damp, but Chanyeol was thankful that at least they were no longer being rained on. As a bonus, the clouds had cleared off enough to reveal the magnificent sky up above, and he admired them while finishing off the baked beans he’d been devouring.

“Look up there,” he nudged Baekhyun. “Those are the stars I was telling you about.”

“Wow,” Baekhyun breathed, mouth falling open as he basked in the spectacle above them. The sea of stars overhead were reflected in the boy’s big black eyes, making them shine with both the light of the night sky and his own pure joy. Chanyeol grinned in satisfaction upon seeing how delighted Baekhyun was; he wasn’t sure why, but he felt a certain sense of pride at having conjured such a brilliant smile from the boy who had initially seemed so distant and cold. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Baekhyun admitted after an extended period of comfortable silence.

Chanyeol’s smile faded a little. “Why not? I mean, you’ve lived in this part of the country for a while now, haven’t you?”

“Ten years,” the other conceded with a sigh, for the first time tearing his gaze away from the stars. “Our clan has been in that stupid cave for the last ten years.”

“But why?” He shifted his pose now, turning to fully face the black-haired boy. “The strikes from Lee Sooman only started in the past few months. What have you been hiding from all that time?”

Another sigh left Baekhyun. “It wasn’t just the Lees. It was every clan, and we needed a way to escape from all the attacks. My parents figured a new headquarters hidden in a mountain was the best option.” Something that the other boy had said stood out to Chanyeol.

“What attacks?” Although Chanyeol recalled only knowing of the one attack — the one that had cost his family their lives — the look on Baekhyun’s face was a clue that perhaps there was far more that had happened. Baekhyun glanced away from the fire and met Chanyeol’s gaze. There seemed to be a hint of fear in his eyes, and as the shorter boy began to bite his lower lip, Chanyeol wondered if the brunet would ever answer his question. But then he sighed, and it was like opening a flood gate of truth.

“Have you ever wondered why Luhan is blind?” Baekhyun began with a slight quiver in his voice. The breath seemed to be sucked straight from Chanyeol’s lungs, and he held his  
breath in anticipation.

“When I was first born, my family and I lived in Colorado. I bet you didn’t know that, did you? I guess you wouldn’t have had a reason to know, but... our old headquarters were actually located in Fraser. It was freezing there, and there was always snow on the ground.” He smiled a little, though there was more pain than pleasure mixed in the expression. “The town was tiny, and was made up mostly of our clan members. On the day that the accident happened, Luhan was walking me home from school, along with the rest of the kids. Yixing was sick that day, and had stayed at home, and since I was slower than the other kids, the two of us were at the very back. 

"I must have only been five or six years old, and he would have been about eleven or twelve. I remember that I wanted to stop and play on the playground down the street from our house, and even though we were supposed to be home by three o’clock, Luhan let me play for a little while. He knew he’d get in trouble later, but he —”  
Baekhyun stopped for a moment, his eyes blinking rapidly, and Chanyeol couldn’t tell whether he was having trouble recalling the rest of the story, or if he was trying to keep himself from crying. Either way, the brunet cleared his throat and shook his head, eyes flickering back unsurely to Chanyeol’s.

“I remember I was swinging on my favorite swing set, when a group of homeless men came over. They made themselves a fire in a trash can, and Luhan left them alone, because he knew that they weren’t affiliated with any mafia. A while later, a fourth man came up to them, and we left him alone too, because he seemed to fit in with the others.” Baekhyun’s face twitched, and he took a deep breath. “We were wrong, obviously. The man called Luhan over at one point, and began talking to him. He asked him his name, where his parents were, what school he went to. Luhan wasn’t stupid enough to give away that sort of information, so he only gave his first name, since I had already called him that once or twice. The man nodded, as if he already knew who Luhan was. And then he —”

Chanyeol’s hand tingled; he didn’t know if it was from the damp air that was beginning to seep into his skin, or if there was a dormant desire in him to comfort Baekhyun, to wipe the restrained panic off of his face. He did all that he could — offering a smile — to encourage the brunet to continue his story.

Baekhyun smiled back, though it resembled a grimace more than anything. “I wasn’t watching closely when it actually happened, but I heard Luhan’s screams of pains from across the playground, and I came running. Burning coals had been tossed into his face, and his eyes were literally burning from the contact. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stuck his face in the snow, praying that it would cool off the fire attacking his face. Later, Luhan would say that I saved his good looks, but I don’t know about that,” he admitted with a laugh, which seemed more genuine now.

Chanyeol, on the other hand, couldn’t make himself laugh. He regarded Baekhyun  
carefully, noting the slight quiver that existed behind that smile. “Is that accident the reason that your parents never let you go anywhere?"

“Partially,” he went on, sighing once more. “My parents were horrified that something like that had happened in our remote little town, and they never let us out of their sight after that, me specifically — I guess it’s because I’m the youngest, and always seemed the weakest in comparison to my brothers.”

It made sense to Chanyeol, when he thought about it: why his parents only gave the leadership roles to Luhan and Yixing, or why his brothers never seemed to discuss important matters with Baekhyun, or why even the people that weren’t related to him, like Kyungsoo, were constantly hovering over his every move and demanding to know where he was. It seemed exhausting, though Chanyeol fought against the pity his heart was tempted to feel towards the black-haired boy.

“Anyway,” he went on, oblivious to Chanyeol’s internal analysis, “we never caught the man, because he ran away by the time my parents and the medics got there. But more attacks kept happening, all from different clans, and we knew we weren’t safe there anymore. It wasn’t until the big fire at the Accords ago that we actually decided to move from Fraser to Jerome.”

Unable to keep his emotions in check, Chanyeol was less than subtle in the way that he flinched at the mention of the fire that killed his family. Unfortunately, Baekhyun was sharp-witted enough to notice, and he squinted at the taller boy with pursed lips. “Did the Kims ever tell you about that fire?”

Confused, Chanyeol blinked at the other boy — then he recalled that, according to his first introduction with the Wus, he was technically a Kim. He smiled ruefully, and shook his head. “I don’t know a lot about it, other than the fact that a lot of people died.”

A gruff sound escaped Baekhyun as he finally finished eating the rice he’d been munching on. “That’s pretty much all you need to know. One minute the leaders were getting ready to sign the Accords, and the next, the entire building was on fire. The entire Park family died, you know.”

The blood in Chanyeol’s veins stopped moving, as did his heart. He spoke through gritted teeth, both fists clenched into tense knots. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, now you do,” Baekhyun said with a mirthless chuckle. He studied the fire for a moment, so intensely that for a moment Chanyeol had to wonder whether or not he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. The flames seemed to dance in his eyes, the embers riding the wind like fireflies.

When Baekhyun finally chose to spoke, it was like someone had poured a bucket of ice over the silent flame that had been burning between them, and the sound of his quiet voice sent a chill down Chanyeol’s back.

“I think that ever since that day with Luhan,” began Baekhyun as he watched the yellow and orange tinted flames lick at the air like tongues, “I’ve had a strange fascination with fire. I wouldn’t necessarily call it an obsession, but...it intrigues me. As a kid who only grew up around ice and snow, I guess it makes sense.”

Baekhyun chuckled at his own confession, but Chanyeol was significantly less amused. As Baekhyun spoke, a cold fear was beginning to creep over him, freezing his limbs and closing off his throat. “Baekhyun. Who was the man that attacked Luhan?”

Though he’d been smiling before that, the brunet’s expression darkened, as if the storm clouds from earlier were back, shading his face in a shadow of anger. “Park Jeongsoo.”

Against his entire will, Chanyeol had to resist the urge to swallow, despite the fact that his hands felt clammy and his body had broken out into a severe nervous sweat. He fixed his face to show no change of emotion, all while knowing that the man who had blinded Baekhyun’s brother was none other than his uncle.

“So he was a Park,” Chanyeol said in what he prayed was a nonchalant manner.

Baekhyun seemed not to notice the fear and confusion raging inside of the taller boy, because he retained his distantly-enraged expression. “I hate even saying their name. They took everything away from my family — our freedom, since we had to live in a cave just to hide from them and their allies. They took away our power, and wouldn’t let my parents have any say in the Accords. Sure, they pretended like others’ opinions were important, but the Wu leaders really just did everything themselves. No wonder it was a failure.”

Chanyeol cleared his throat awkwardly, trying his very best to repress the emotions surging up within him. “But don’t you think the Accords would have worked if the Parks had been there to uphold it?”

Baekhyun stared at him like he’d just grown another head. “Chanyeol. The Parks are all gone. They either died or got absorbed into other clans. There’s no point in wondering what life would be like if they were still here.”

Chanyeol’s right eye twitched — what would life be like if his parents, his siblings, and his clan were all still here? It was something he had thought about every single day for the past ten years, and yet here was Baekhyun, acting like it was simple to just erase all of those memories and emotions. It made him recognize once again how different the two of them were, and how different they always would be.

“But they can’t all be bad, can they?” he tried once, somewhat curious of Baekhyun’s response.

A short bark leapt from Baekhyun’s lips to demonstrate his amusement. “That’s a funny question. And I don’t care how many of them are ‘good’ — any mafia who tried to force that sort of tyranny on the other clans is bad in my opinion.”

“Tyranny? I thought the plan was for all the clans to be united and fight against Lee Sooman.”

Once again, Baekhyun regarded him like he was stupid. “Do you really believe that, Chanyeol? Just think about it — the Parks were the ones controlling the Accords from the very beginning. After leading the other clans to defeat the Lees, that would only have left them in power, and they would have ruled all of us while using the Accords as justification. That’s why I’m glad the plan failed. Hell, I’m even glad that fire happened. Otherwise, you, me, and every other mafia member in the country might be suffering under their control.”

The words were so foreign to Chanyeol’s ears, and so contrary to everything his parents had spoken about in public. They had preached about a greater future, one in which nobody was repressed by powerful forces, and all of the clans could coexist peacefully together. Hearing the way that Baekhyun felt about such a beautiful vision filled Chanyeol with rage, disbelief, and a striking sense of disappointment, which he couldn’t place the root of.

“You really don’t like the Parks, do you?” Chanyeol whispered, unable to help himself.

The coldness in Baekhyun’s black eyes was suffocating and painful for Chanyeol to see. Even worse was the sincerity caged in his voice as he spoke, without wavering for a single moment. “Chanyeol, I hate that family with my entire being. And nothing will change that.”

For some inexplicable reason, a tear leaked out of Chanyeol’s eye. He hated himself for feeling weak, for showing such a petty emotion. It wasn’t because of what Baekhyun had said, per se, because a part of him had sensed that the hatred he harbored for the Wus was mutual, and so Baekhyun’s confession wasn’t as much of a surprise as perhaps it should have been. Rather, he was overcome by a wave of loneliness, as if Baekhyun’s words had reminded him how utterly alone in this world he was. Sure, he had Jongin, and Sehun, and Tao, but they were all bound together by the knowledge that they had left their clans by choice; they hadn’t had their entire worlds ripped away from them. They also seemed to be adapting better to life with the Wus than he was, and he often wondered if they were losing sight of what really mattered in this plan of theirs. He was here for revenge, and revenge alone, but it hurt to admit to himself — however much he hated it — that revenge was easier said than done, especially when people like Baekhyun were continuing to cement themselves as important people in his life.

“Chanyeol,” the black-haired boy whispered after a lapse of silence, broken only by his gentle sniffling. The shorter leaned forward to study his face through the dark, and jerked back when he saw the tears streaming down the other’s face. “Oh god, Chanyeol, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to bring the mood down this much, I’m sorry. God, I always ramble too much. Ugh, here, why don’t I —”

Trailing off, Baekhyun didn’t wait for Chanyeol’s permission as he clambered over their stack of backpacks and supplies and sidled up beside the taller. He looped an arm around Chanyeol’s shoulders and used the other to link their fingers together, squeezing gently. He had also somehow managed to worm his way into Chanyeol’s sleeping bag, and was admittedly proving to be a very reliant source of heat in the chilly night. Too shocked to move away, Chanyeol could only continue to cry as Baekhyun directed his head to lean on his shoulder, voice much softer now. “What’s wrong, Yeol? Why are you crying?”

The boy felt stupid, and dumb, and so, so pathetic — but he couldn’t stop. The tears just kept falling, and he kept sobbing, and Baekhyun kept smoothing out his unruly curls, just the way his mom used to. With every gentle stroke, Chanyeol’s walls were being kicked down, until they were nothing but dust and crumbled bricks lying broken on the ground.

“My parents,” Chanyeol managed to squeak out in between breaths for air. “My whole family. They... They all died.”

He felt Baekhyun tense up in realization, his hand freezing while poised above Chanyeol’s head, and he could practically hear the gears clicking into place for the other. When he finally realized all that he’d said to Chanyeol and how that connected to the taller boy, Baekhyun gasped in horror, jerking his hand away (to Chanyeol’s slight displeasure).

“Yeol... Oh god, Chanyeol, I — I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry. I really am. I had no idea.”

Chanyeol tried to laugh, but it just came out in the form of another strained sob. “It’s okay, really. You had no reason to know.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Baekhyun whispered in his ear, and Chanyeol not only had to resist the suppress the shudder that raced down his spine, but also had to remind himself that Baekhyun was asking out of courtesy — he didn’t really care.

Still, it was an opportunity to let out some of his pent-up frustrations, even if they were tinged with a few lies and fibs here and there.

“They were killed by someone from another clan,” Chanyeol murmured as he turned to look at Baekhyun. He wasn’t sure when their faces had gotten so close, or why Baekhyun’s eyes looked so big, but he was undaunted, nonetheless. “I was only seven, but I remember everything from that day: the faces of everyone there, the sounds of my family being killed, the way that the air smelled like death.”

When Baekhyun shivered (whether from the cold air or the gruesome story, he wasn’t sure), the chills were felt against Chanyeol too, due to their close proximity. He questioned his own actions as he pressed the smaller boy against him, their bodies now flush against each other in the skinny sleeping bag. If Baekhyun was embarrassed, he said nothing, and his expression was hidden in the darkness, the last few flames of the fire now dying out.

“Who did it?” Baekhyun whispered while continuing to stare up at him, and Chanyeol wondered when they had gotten in this position, with Chanyeol caging the brunet against the ground, their noses only inches apart.

He swallowed thickly, more focused on the inky blackness of Baekhyun’s eyes than the fact that he was speaking to his enemy about what his family had done to Chanyeol. He knew it was one of the Wus, certainly — it was only a matter of which one to blame. And so, Chanyeol was being perfectly honest when he admitted those three momentous words: “I don’t know.”

Baekhyun’s eyes, big and bright even in the impenetrable darkness, flickered across his face warily, searching for something hidden in the taller’s features. He smiled at him, and the gesture was returned.

“I’ll help you find them,” he whispered, voice sweet and soft against Chanyeol’s ear. The words were clear, but Chanyeol was too distracted to fully register them right away.

“What?”

The boy leaned back down, back meeting the hard surface of the ground. He seemed more confident when he spoke this time, and a small smile tugged at his lips. “I’ll help you. Whoever hurt you and your family deserves to pay for it, so once this mission is over and we get back home, I’ll help you find whoever killed them.”

Chanyeol’s mind was spinning at a million miles an hour, though it easily could have been a side effect of the sweet scent emanating from Baekhyun’s body — what was it? Honey? Lavender? Strawberry, perhaps?

“Baekhyun,” he shook his head, trying to sweep away excess thoughts pervading his brain so he could just focus. “I can’t let you do that. You’re —”

“The most generous and wonderful person you’ve ever met?” Baekhyun finished for him, grin widening mischievously. “I know, I know. No need to tell me again.”

The taller was at a loss for words: he wanted to laugh, then cry, then both: how could this be happening? The very person connected to the deaths of his family was offering his full support in hunting down whoever was responsible. It was absurd, and absolutely ridiculous. It would either fail horribly, or — as Chanyeol was trying to persuade himself — it could succeed marvelously.

And yet, shouldn’t Chanyeol be jumping at such a chance? He may have just found another route into exacting his revenge, the most convenient part being that Baekhyun would be immune to it all along. It was a golden opportunity for Chanyeol — so why did the boy’s offer fill him a sense of guilt, instead of elation?

“Fine,” he told the bright-eyed boy after a moment. “But not yet, okay? Let’s give it some time.”

“If you say so,” shrugged Baekhyun, though with the way his eyes had become trained on another part of Chanyeol’s face, it was clear that he was no longer thinking about their plan to find the murderer.

As a smug feeling replaced his confusion and concern, Chanyeol smirked down at Baekhyun, pleased when the other boy blushed horribly. “What are you looking at, Baek?”  
“Nothing,” the brunet was quick to assert, though the pink hint of his cheeks gave him away.

“Mhm.” Chanyeol, feeling rather bold all of a sudden, leaned down next to the boy, so close that their faces would be touching if either dared to move a single muscle. This wasn’t right, and Chanyeol knew it. “Baek, look at me.”

Though the other had been pointedly evading his gaze, he slowly dragged his eyes back to Chanyeol’s, biting his lip nervously. The taller couldn’t help but smile at the action, though it brought a certain pang to his heart. Baekhyun looked so small beneath him, his eyes especially youthful and alert given their close proximity.  
This was wrong. He was not only distracting himself from his plan for vengeance, but also playing with the other boy more than he should have. The brunet seemed so pliable and soft right now, with not a trace of distrust to be found on his face. This wasn’t right.

Then again — he knew he didn’t care for Baekhyun much. It was just the nighttime making his eyes look so dark, and the stars making his skin shimmer, and the wind sweeping his silky black locks away from his face. He was beautiful. Chanyeol would be an idiot to deny such a thing.

Maybe this was alright for right now. This was the first chance for contact Chanyeol had been presented with in forever, and Baekhyun’s soft-looking skin was calling out too loudly for him to ignore. Teeth glinting, Chanyeol’s lips moved to press right against Baekhyun’s ear, causing the smaller to inhale sharply.

“Baekhyun,” he whispered against the boy’s smooth skin, breath hot and steamy as he spoke.  
“Mm?” the smaller managed to choke out after a considerable length of time. He seemed fidgety, especially in his lower half, but he did a good job of staying still under Chanyeol’s tight grasp.

Chanyeol smirked against his ear, lips moving to the lobe and giving a tentative nibble. “What happened to never letting your guard down?”

Baekhyun’s eyes, which had been closed in that moment, suddenly flew open — it was only then that he saw the knife pointed at his neck, Chanyeol gripping the handle of it like his life depended on it.

“Yeol.” Baekhyun blinked at the blade the other boy was wielding, perplexion and then fear washing across his features. “What are you —”

“You’re too trusting, Baek,” Chanyeol told him as he tucked the knife back into his pocket. He’d had no intention of killing Baekhyun then — or maybe he had; he wasn’t quite sure — he just wanted to see how far the other boy would follow him. It was terrible, when he realized that the boy he had met only a few weeks ago was already trusting enough to let him go this far. The strong, fierce Baekhyun he had sparred with in the training center was a stark contrast against this moonwashed boy looking all mussed and confused.

“I don’t understand,” the boy sat up, watching while Chanyeol backed away. “Were you trying to kiss me, or kill me?”

Chanyeol wanted to scream at the boy to shut up, to just stop talking and let him think for a moment. He’d like to make him quiet by kissing him, or running his hands through his hair like he’d done moments earlier — or he wanted to take the blade and stab it through his heart, just to get this whole stinking business over with. Why couldn’t Baekhyun just be the same stubborn snob as always? It would make Chanyeol’s job so much easier.

The tall boy sighed, feeling like a thousand bricks had just been dumped on his shoulders. “Both. Or neither. I wanted to see how much you trust me.”

If possible, Baekhyun looked even more puzzled now. “But.. we’re partners. Don’t you want me to trust you?”

“No. I mean, not yet. It’s just —” Chanyeol groaned and rubbed his eyes wearily. “We’ve only known each for a few weeks now. Your own family said that they couldn’t trust me until the induction. Why are you so comfortable with me?”

To his credit, Baekhyun seemed to actually consider the spontaneous question, lips scrunching thoughtfully. “Because you’re different. That sounds like a cliche answer, I know,” he assured when he saw Chanyeol’s dubious expression, “but it’s true. Everyone else in the clan treats me like a child, but you’re the first person I’ve met that doesn’t dote on me consistently.”

“I thought I made it very clear that I find you annoying,” Chanyeol pointed out in a deadpan tone, “and stuck-up.”

“Exactly my point,” smiled Baekhyun hesitantly. Suddenly nervous, he rubbed his hands against his thighs, and Chanyeol did his best not to think about what it would be like to do the same. “From the first time we met, you never tried to hide how you felt about me, and it gave me a chance to prove something to you. I feel like I’ve shown you by now that I’m not completely incompetent, and that I can defend myself properly.”

“But can you?” challenged the curly-haired boy, eyebrows raised. “Just now, I held a knife to your throat, and you did nothing to stop me.”

For the first time, Baekhyun looked shy, and he lowered his gaze so he wouldn’t have to answer to Chanyeol’s dark, appraising eyes. “Well then maybe I did let my guard down after all,” he said in a timid voice while biting his lip. “Maybe you always make me lower my guard.”

Chanyeol wasn’t sure how to interpret that. If Baekhyun was talking purely about the undeniable, underlying tension fizzling between them, then that was understandable; if he was honest with himself, he had found himself admiring the other boy’s form and features more times than he was comfortable with admitting, but he had never been one to turn down a quick fling. But Baekhyun’s words sounded awfully like a confession, which was not something he had signed up for. He was here to destroy this boy’s family, not to make Baekhyun fall in love with him.

“Baekhyun,” he struggled to say after a few seconds, mouth gaping like a fish, “I don’t—”

“Forget it,” was all that the brunet said. He staggered towards his own sleeping bag before snuggling beneath the lined material, back turned to Chanyeol in an obvious sign that he didn’t want to talk any longer.

Chanyeol watched the shape of Baekhyun’s body rise and fall with each breath the boy took, until the movements grew slower and he seemed to be asleep. He sighed then, rolling over on his back to stare up at the stars. They seemed to be glaring at him now, their sharp points stabbing accusingly at him. He closed his eyes, just so he wouldn’t have to feel their judgement anymore.  
His eyes had just begun to fall shut, when a soft voice broke the silence of the night, drifting towards him on a whisper of the wind: “I trust you, Chanyeol. And I know you trust me too.”

Chanyeol closed his eyes, refusing to reply, if only because he knew that Baekhyun was right.

* * *

_“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown, but longed for still.”_

**PART I, chapter vi**

_Once more, Chanyeol was faced with Sleep and Her vision of people falling from the sky._

_She smiled at him warmly, sunshine painting Her features gold. Her hair moved of its own accord, streaming towards him like the tail of a kite. This time, he didn’t wait for Her to show him the way. He knew where to go now, and he darted off down the cloud-paved path, stumbling over his own feet and wishing that, like the birds in the sky, he could fly faster. All the while, Sleep glided along behind him, a silent yet stern force guiding his actions._

_He skidded to a stop at the cliff and tried to peer over the edge. He spotted the birds circling around in the sky, leisurely as always, but he knew what would happen now. Before they could change into humans, he turned to Sleep, begging Her to help him._

_“Please,” he cried, tears streaming down his face. She ignored his pleas and leaned forward, though it was merely to wipe a tear from his cheek. She smiled at him in a motherly fashion and ruffled his hair, igniting a sensation of hope inside of him._

_“Mother?” he dared to ask as he brought his eyes to her face, her features fragmented and warped the longer he looked, as if he was gazing through a prism of glass._  
_She smiled at him once more, and Chanyeol knew She wasn’t his mother. She pointed over his shoulder at the birds, one eyebrow raised, as if to say, Do you want to save them?_

_He nodded vigorously, fingers going to clutch Her silken dress imploringly. “Yes, please! What do I need to do?”_

_She knelt down to his level, Her angelic features alight in the glow of the sun that always seemed to be rising and setting at the same time. She waved Her hand, and a mirage appeared before him: a shadowed figure stooped over a cliff, similar to the one Chanyeol stood on. The figure fell over the edge, plummeting down past birds that trailed after him. Chanyeol gasped at the vision, breath compressing inside of his chest. “Someone’s going to fall.”_

_Sleep nodded at him, that lovely smile still plastered on her face._

_“Who is it?” he demanded, desperate to save the poor person. For the first time, Sleep spoke to him: “It is you, Chanyeol.”_

_Chanyeol had barely recovered from the shock of hearing her voice — gravelly and hard, not at all like he had pictured — before Sleep smiled sweetly at him one more time, and shoved him off the side of the cliff._

_Chanyeol’s body raced towards the white abyss at lightning speed, his screams blocking out the distressed cawing of the birds overhead._

When Chanyeol woke from his dream, he was still screaming, and he felt his body hit the ground.

Except he wasn’t the one screaming. And it wasn’t his body that hit the ground.

He was awoken when he heard the scream rip through the night air, shredding it with the terror embedded in the sound, and his heart dropped along with the person that fell from the Devil’s Bridge. In the span of only a few seconds, in the same amount of time that it took to recognize that clouds had covered the stars in the sky, his limbs froze with fear, and he was unable to utter a peep — even the oxygen in his lungs refused to seep out.

And then the person hit the ground, and the sound stopped.

Chanyeol’s heart finally began pumping blood again, and he tossed away his sleeping bag as he struggled to stand. He wanted to rouse Baekhyun, but it only took a single sweep across their modest campsite to recognize that the other boy was nowhere in sight. Once more, the blood rushing through his veins ceased to flow; he tried to shake the thoughts from dominating his mind, but how could he? With one less person on the cliff and one more person on the ground, it was impossible not to imagine that the boy with the black eyes lay crumpled directly beneath Devil’s Bridge.

Crawling to the edge of the cliff, Chanyeol already knew the sight wouldn’t be pretty, but he was drawn to look anyway, as if Sleep had managed to slither from his dreams into the real world.

A black blanket of darkness dropped off once he reached the edge of the sandstone rock. He shone his flashlight down, voice just as unsteady as his hands: “H-Hello? Who’s down there?”

It wasn’t as if he expected the injured person to respond, yet the silence that answered him still chilled his bones. The flashlight shone down fifty feet below, and he braced himself for the gruesome sight that awaited him at the bottom.

But there was no one there.

Bewilderment shrouded Chanyeol’s judgement, and then fear: had he imagined the sound of someone screaming? The horrible thud when a body hit the ground? Surely not — yet he couldn’t be sure, not with the corrosive types of dreams he’d been having lately. A coyote howled in the near distance, raising the hairs on the nape of Chanyeol’s neck, and he turned to see if Baekhyun was as spooked as he was; unfortunately, the black-haired boy was still gone, and Chanyeol’s worries were now cemented in reality. Baekhyun was missing, and as his partner (no matter how much he pretended to hate him), he would go out of his mind if the other boy got hurt because of somewhere that Chanyeol had personally brought them.

“Baekhyun!” his voice bellowed out in the eerie night, as if he, too, was a wild coyote. “Baekhyun, where are you? Baekhyun!”

It came to no surprise that there was no response: Chanyeol had already begun packing a few necessary survival items into his bag before he stood and trudged towards the woods, away from the edge of Devil’s Bridge. His feet crunched over gravel and sticks as he plunged into the abyss-like forest, wielding only a flashlight as his weapon. His ears perked up at every sound that rattled through the brittle branches, though fear was the only factor that dissuaded him from freezing on the spot.

Anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour had passed by the time that Chanyeol had circled the top of the plateau; any longer than that would have been a waste of time, because he realized that if he hadn’t found Baekhyun at that point, then the boy was either too far to be found, or lying dead in a ditch somewhere.

That’s what he believed, at least until he arrived back at Devil’s Bridge and witnessed Baekhyun busying himself with making shadow puppets against a broad boulder behind him with the aid of his flashlight. At the sound of Chanyeol’s startled gasp, the brunet turned and smiled at him, no sign of distress contorting his features.

“Hey, Yeol,” he greeted, as if the taller had just gone to take a piss behind a tree. The curly-haired boy blinked at him in disbelief. “Baek... What are you doing here?”

“Uh, making shadow puppets,” he replied with a cute, confused smile, even as he continued to morph his hands into the shape of some unknown animal. “Look at this one! Can you tell what it is?”

Chanyeol ignored the question in a desperate attempt to retain his own sanity. “No, I mean — Where were you? Where have you been all this time?”

“I’ve been right here. And I could ask you the same question, mister!” huffed Baekhyun as he lowered his hands reluctantly. “Why were you gone for so long? I was starting to get worried.”

Once again, Chanyeol could only blink and scratch his head. He could have sworn thatBaekhyun had been gone when he’d checked, but maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him again. You couldn’t call a situation a murder scene if there was no weapon, no killer, and no body, so Chanyeol’s game of detective that he was playing with himself needed to stop. Still, the scream splitting the air, the body hitting the ground, the sleeping bag vacant of its stubborn-minded resident: they had all seemed so... real.

He was too focused on his own storm of thoughts to register the presence of the petite black-haired boy when he appeared before him, smile and eyes as big as ever, even when Chanyeol flinched at their close proximity. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of me now, Mister Phoenix,” said Baekhyun, accompanied by a laugh at the startled expression cemented on the taller boy’s face. He tugged on Chanyeol’s sweatshirt, looking like a puppy with that pitiful pout, and eyed the sleeping bags  
nearby. “Come on, I’m tired. Let’s go back to sleep.”

Chanyeol shook his head with a sigh. “We can’t. We have to get going.”

“What?” Baekhyun watched, shocked and betrayed, as Chanyeol began to roll up his sleeping bag and gather his belongings. He waved insistently at the picotee blue sky overhead.

“It’s the middle of the night!”

“No, it’s actually almost dawn, which means that we should have been moving over an hour ago.”

Baekhyun glowered at the underlying accusation, grudgingly following Chanyeol’s lead in packing up their things. “Well maybe we could have left sooner if you hadn’t wasted so much time running around the woods at three a.m.!”

It would have been easy for Chanyeol to protest, but he was still perplexed by his own inability to realize that he’d wandered off on a wild goose chase, and he also just didn’t feel like arguing with the ever-pigheaded Baekhyun. So he just hoisted his gear on his back and tossed the shorter boy a smile he hoped didn’t look too forced.

“Come on, princess. Time to go hunt down some water bottles.”

************

By the time that the prickly pair arrived back at the Wus’ headquarters in Jerome, the sun’s rays were nearly completely faded beyond the rim of the horizon. The sunset painted the sky in an array of gold and garnet clouds, basking Baekhyun in a heavenly hue as Chanyeol strolled behind him, a cart of water bottles being towed by each boy.

He quirked a smile at the way the shorter male was struggling with the heavy wagon of water bottles he was lugging along, yet still opted to lag behind, despite keeping a careful eye on the boy’s wound from the day before. It looked painful, but Baekhyun had made it clear that he was no damsel in distress, and it didn’t seem as if he would appreciate Chanyeol treating him like an incapable child. Besides, his injury didn’t seem to be causing him much pain, judging by the aggressive way he was battling with the cart of bottled water.

“What is wrong with this water!” groaned Baekhyun between gritted teeth as they rounded a corner, and one of the wheels of the wagon got caught between a cluster of small stones. Chanyeol merely watched in amusement while the brunet kicked and cursed at the bottles full of “demon water”, ranting about how much heavier this water was than normal water. “My wagon is fine,” he pointed out to the angry boy with a grin on his face.

“Shut up, Yeol,” Baekhyun grumbled under his breath.  
Cackling, Chanyeol pointed up ahead. “Come on, we don’t have much further.”

“I know, but...” The boy gestured to the mountain of plastic bottles in his cart. “These are really heavy.”

Chanyeol gave up on his attempt at keeping Baekhyun’s reputation intact, and strode over to where he was, eyebrows rising and lips splitting into a smile when he was able to move the wagon with childlike ease. “Doesn’t seem that heavy to me.”

The shorter turned to glare at him, fists clenched in preparation to strike, though a weary sigh was the only result. “Yeah, well, not all of us have superhuman strength like you, Yeol.”  
Chanyeol frowned. He hadn’t meant to offend Baekhyun: just poke at him with a bit of playful banter, but perhaps he had overstepped his boundaries. Still, the entire walk back and since this morning, Baekhyun had seemed a little more sensitive than usual, unable to handle even the tiniest joke that the taller tossed his way.

“Hey, Baek, is everything okay?” Chanyeol inquired, albeit against his will.

The boy’s big black eyes grew wide with alarm; it seemed like he’d been caught, though doing what, Chanyeol didn’t know. He opened his mouth as if to protest, but trailed off as his eyes caught sight of something else behind Chanyeol. The taller turned too, only to spot the entrance to the mine tunnel nearby. It was overgrown with weeds like always, but there was a difference now: whereas typically the tunnel was secretly guarded by a hidden member of the clan, there were now three people standing outside the entrance, with a pistol and a knife in each hand, and a bow and arrow strapped to their backs.

“Hmm. That’s strange.” Baekhyun traipsed forward a bit, grunting with the weight of the wagon. “They never guard out in the open like that. The whole idea is to be basically invisible.”

Something unsettling began to swirl inside of Chanyeol’s stomach, and without waiting for Baekhyun, he strode towards the tunnel entrance, listening for the click-clack of the wheels from Baekhyun’s wagon to follow closely behind. With the two carts creating so much racket, it wasn’t long before they drew attention from the trio of guards. Weapons held high, the patrolmen snapped to offensive stances, only relaxing when they spotted Baekhyun by Chanyeol’s side.

“We come in peace,” joked Chanyeol, flashing a peace-sign like some old alien from a movie, but the guards didn’t even bother grinning at his poor attempt at humor.

“Sir, where have you been?” one of the guards, a woman who was easily twice Baekhyun’s age, asked the shorter boy, desperation lacing her tone.  
Baekhyun looked just as confused as Chanyeol felt. “On my mission, of course. We left yesterday morning, just like everyone else.”

The woman breathed a grateful sigh and ushered them forward, as if to inspect them.

“Come here, let me look at you. Did anyone hurt you?”

“Ah, well,” Chanyeol began, thinking of the lingering wound on Baekhyun’s shoulder blade, though he immediately silenced himself after receiving a scalding glare from the other male. “No, actually. We’re both fine.”

“That’s a relief. Now please, sir, hurry inside. Your family is worried sick about you.”

“They are? Why?” Baekhyun wondered aloud, voicing Chanyeol’s same inquiries. He was ignored, however, as the assertive woman pushed them inside the tunnel and shut the door afterwards, locking it with a firm click.

Even though it was dark, Chanyeol could tell that Baekhyun was searching his face for answers. He suspected that the shorter boy shared his gut feeling that something was wrong.

For that reason, the brunet could only offer a grim sigh and a firm nod. “Come on. Let’s go.” Apprehension seemed to flood Chanyeol’s veins with every step he took, dragging his feet along the floor as if they were blocks of cement. He could tell that Baekhyun was reluctant to enter the cave first, solely by the other’s silence (which was a rare occurrence, in Chanyeol’s experience). So without asking for permission, Chanyeol shoved the airlocked door to the headquarters open, Baekhyun treading lightly after him.

Like always, Chanyeol was immediately struck by the immense size of the city hidden within the mountain, dumbfounded by how perfectly the walls were carved, how realistic the fake sky overhead looked, how peaceful the clan members seemed as they went about their business: like porcelain dolls, content and happy in their pristine utopia.

But the pair’s presence seemed to shatter that image, with Chanyeol’s tall figure drawing the attention of the core members of the Wu family from nearby. They approached him and Baekhyun rapidly, eyes wide and full of panic, and the sinking feeling that had been swirling in his stomach only submerged deeper.

“Oh, thank God!” Junmyeon was the first to say as his arms wrapped around Baekhyun and Chanyeol, albeit somewhat awkwardly amongst all the bent elbows and the height  
difference. “You’re alive!”

His words hit Chanyeol in the throat, making him blink rapidly in semi-disbelief. Junmyeon was an enemy, and yet here he was, embracing Chanyeol as if he were his own  
child. It brought tears to the Park boy’s eyes, tears which were quickly dried as he pulled away, reminding himself that now was not the time to begin sobbing uncontrollably.

Clearly not noticing the lingering sense of jeopardy in the air, Baekhyun just wrinkled his nose and tried to wriggle away from his father’s grip. “Of course we are. What’s with everyone?”

“Chanyeol,” Yixing began, his tone coated in caution. It was impossible to miss the fact that he had completely glossed over Baekhyun’s questions, and was now speaking directly to the other boy. “I’m sorry to say this but... There’s been an accident.”

He sucked in a breath. He knew these words would hurt him, no matter what.

Yixing’s eyes were kind and sympathetic, but they were drooping with an obvious sorrow as he spoke.

“It’s Tao. He... He’s been hurt. Badly.”

It was wrong. So wrong. But Chanyeol wasn’t even this surprised. Maybe it was because of the dreams he had been having, ever since the first night he  
had arrived in this hellish headquarters: visions of the woman in white smiling down at him with absent care in her eyes, while people dropped from the sky like rain pellets.

The words he had shared with the woman in his dreams came back to him, her warning surfacing like an epiphany come too late.

“He fell, didn’t he?” Chanyeol whispered, eyes shut to brace himself. He peeked an eye open, only to see Yixing regarding him with shock. His lips trembled  
when he spoke.

“How did you know?”

Chanyeol didn’t have the time nor the heart to respond. He turned on his heel and marched towards the training center. He didn’t stop when Yixing called after him, or even at the sound of his name on Baekhyun’s lips. He didn’t care about any of them right now: all he wanted was to collapse on his bed, to have a moment alone to think and process everything that was happening, without the watchful eyes of the Wu family.

His feet carried him to the ivy-covered building faster than he expected, and when he passed the gym inside, he was startled by noises coming from within, like the smack of a sandbag against the ground.

The gym was dimly-lit, yet he was still able to make out a tall form in the middle, slashing a sword through the air and huffing with each movement he made. “Sehun?”

His friend let out a cry as his weapon sliced downwards, and he turned towards the taller boy. He didn’t seem surprised by his appearance in the slightest. “I’m assuming you heard.”

He nodded, though somewhat taken aback by Sehun’s bluntness. “Does Jongin know yet?”

“No. He and Jongdae haven’t even gotten back yet. Last I heard, Luhan and Minseok went out to look for them. Maybe try to help them.” Sehun set down his sword, collapsing onto the clean floor with a defeated sigh. “Though I don’t know what good that will do. Clearly a blind guy should never be left in charge, if this is what happens while we’re gone.”

“Don’t say that,” Chanyeol urged half-heartedly, trying to reassure himself that Luhan was someone he could rely on, and Minseok, too. But now he was uncertain of who he could trust, of who was safe in this ticking time bomb of a trap.

“Tao’s paralyzed, by the way,” Sehun interrupted Chanyeol’s steady stream of thought. His friend’s face looked as if it had aged at least ten years, with frown lines imprinted where traces of laughter usually were. “At least, he will be, if he ever wakes up. He’s been unconscious since Kyungsoo found him this morning, lying on the ground.”

“What happened?” Chanyeol demanded, more to himself than to Sehun, as his hands tugged at his hair in frustration, wishing he could rip it all out. “How could this happen to him? To us?”

A mirthless laugh leapt from Sehun’s lips, bouncing off the walls of the gym in a lonely echo. It made Chanyeol feel very, very small.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sehun asked, unwrapping a bandage that was tied securely around his hand. Chanyeol hadn’t even noticed it. “It’s those bastards waiting outside. One of the Wus did this. Someone did this to Tao.”

“How do you know that?” he asked in a hoarse voice, but he knew just as well as Sehun did that this was no accident.

The younger boy snorted, sounding genuinely amused by Chanyeol’s question. “Tao is scared of heights, Chan. You really think he would have gone on top of Devil’s Bridge on his own?”

Chanyeol shuddered: so it had been Tao that he’d heard last night. He’d wanted to be wrong, but had known that he hadn’t imagined that scream, the one that had haunted him with each step he’d taken in returning to this place: even now, if he shut his eyes, he could hear the blood-curdling voice ripping through the night air, grating it to pieces before it fell limply to the ground.

“You haven’t even heard weirdest part about it yet,” Sehun reported, voice more numb and eyes more stone-cold than ever before. “When Kyungsoo found him on the ground, he was lying in a pool of his own blood. But there was something on his chest — a letter, painted across his shirt.”

Something twinged at the back of Chanyeol’s mind: a memory, desperate to leap forward from the flames of his past, but he compelled it to stay still, if only for a moment. He inhaled slowly in a dire attempt to stay calm. “What was it?”

“A big, red A.”

The image of the same letter, surrounded by hellish fire and screaming people, blasted to the forefront of Chanyeol’s brain, and he gasped at the force of its presence. That letter had stood above the death and destruction in that meeting room ten years ago, had watched over Chanyeol’s tortured tears as his family died, and now the same letter mocked him leisurely from the body of his best friend, reminding him that he was still a powerless little boy, unable to save those who he truly cared about.

Inexplicably, Baekhyun’s face flashed into his mind beside the faces of his family and friends, and it felt like an insult to Chanyeol that his brain would betray him that way, allying itself with his heart just to spite him for the true feelings he knew he couldn’t withhold from the black-haired boy.

But then he recalled their previous conversation, the one about the appellation Baekhyun had chosen for himself: the Bird of Paradise. _Apus_.

_The Park family. I hate even saying their name_ , Baekhyun had told him with fire in his voice, up on Devil’s Bridge. _I’m even glad that fire happened_. The Bird of Paradise. Apus. _A._

And that was it. That was all the information that Chanyeol needed to rouse himself from this stupor. He stormed out of the gym without another word to Sehun, pushing his way back out of the training center and into the glow of artificial light leaking in from overhead. He didn’t have to go very far to search for who he wanted, because the black-haired boy was waiting for him at the bottom of the steps.

“Yeol.”

Even the sound of the boy calling his name made Chanyeol want to snap, made him want to grab the other by the shoulders and shake him senseless, until the truth would fall from those pretty lips of his.

And so he did.

“Chanyeol!” Baekhyun gasped when the taller’s fingers gripped onto his frame, roughly forcing him to back against the wall. He shoved the Wu boy once, out of pure frustration, and a second time, just for the satisfaction of hear him crying out in pain.

“See? It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Chanyeol, what on earth are you doing?” the brunet asked as he attempted to pry the taller’s hands off of him, though it was to no avail. “Let go! You’re hurting me!”

“Where did you go last night?” Chanyeol demanded, knowing that it would shut the other boy up.

Surely enough, Baekhyun immediately stopped trying to wriggle free, though he tried to fix his features to be impartial. “What?”

“I asked you where you went last night.” Chanyeol’s tone was dark, void of the teasing tone that they had learned to communicate in. “You know, when you disappeared and tried to make me believe you’d been there the whole time? But I’m not stupid, Baekhyun, even if you think I am. I know that you were missing, and I know that I heard a scream. So tell me, little ‘Hyunnie,’ where did you wander off to last night?”

Baekhyun bit his lip nervously, clearly uncomfortable with the harsh, sharp-edged words coming from Chanyeol’s mouth, but he still didn’t bend under the pressure. “I can’t tell you. But I promise that I didn’t kill your friend.”

An amused huff was the first response from Chanyeol, and he shook his head, chuckling lowly. “Nobody said he was dead yet.”

“I’m just saying...” Baekhyun seemed to backtrack, realizing his mistake in word selection. “I heard that he’s in a precarious state. And I don’t think that it was an accident. I also heard that —”

“Shut up!” Chanyeol shouted at the top of his lungs, startling Baekhyun into stumbling backwards. “Just shut up, for once in your damn life!”

The boy kept blinking at him, looking so confused and hurt, which only reflected onto Chanyeol, making him feel like someone was twisting a knife inside of him, over and over again.

“I’m sorry, Yeol. I really am, but I promise that I —”

“I said shut up!” Chanyeol grunted, fed up with the other male’s incessant babbling and trusting attitude. He didn’t want to hear another word of “promises” from the boy in the black hoodie, so he silenced him with his lips, forcing them to meet in a rash move that left his head spinning and his heart pounding. He felt the shorter gasp against him at the contact, though he didn’t protest, and quickly responded to the kiss by wrapping his hands around Chanyeol’s neck to bring him closer. The taller wanted to wrap his arms around the brunet, run his hands up and down that soft body of his, but his hands had other plans, it seemed. They crept lower and lower while his mouth worked against the plush lips of the other male, until his fingers were gripping a small object and moving against it in a careful motion.

“Chanyeol,” moaned Baekhyun as the taller continued his slow, drawn-out arrest of his lips. “Are you... Are you going to kill me?”

Chanyeol froze, as did the hand that was lowering the knife towards Baekhyun’s body. It hung in the air above the pair, blatant and impossible to unsee, and leaving no room for second-guessing.

Baekhyun was the first to pull away from the kiss, looking extraordinarily beautiful with those swollen lips and that frizzy hair. Even his smile, though sad and resigned, was breathtaking.

He eyed the blade gripped in Chanyeol’s fingertips, but he didn’t move away. “Do you really want to kill me?”

The taller boy sighed as he tucked the thin dagger back into his pocket — he knew it could never be that easy. “You never let your guard down, do you, Baek?”

The boy seemed as if he wanted to smile, but his eyes were too busy searching Chanyeol’s face, both for his questions and his answers. “I already told you. I didn’t do anything to your friend.”

His eyes were so big, and so beautiful, and so innocent. Chanyeol wanted to believe him, with every fiber of his being. He wanted to trust Baekhyun. “Can you tell me where you were last night?”

For a moment, as he locked eyes with Chanyeol and continued to cling onto his sweatshirt, it seemed as if the boy would cave in, and the taller would finally get the answers that he felt he deserved. But then came the tell-tale sigh, and a simple shake of his head. “I can’t, Yeol. I’m sorry.”

“Then I can’t trust you,” was Chanyeol’s instant response, because he knew it was true. No matter how much he was drawn to Baekhyun, no matter how much he wanted to explore every inch of that boy’s heart, mind, and body, he couldn’t continue kidding himself. Not after what happened to Tao. This was a wake-up call to Chanyeol: a reminder not to be fooled by the devil, even when he’s blessed with the most captivating pair of eyes ever to exist.

Baekhyun’s hands were reaching out to Chanyeol before the taller could even step away, and desperation was blooming on the boy’s face like a faded flower. “Where are you going?”

“Away from you,” he told him with a straight face, because it was the truth. And someone around here deserved to touch a glimmer of the truth for once.

The shorter boy didn’t argue: how could he? Instead, he bit his lip, and Chanyeol briefly wondered if the other male had any idea what sort of effect that had on him, how wild it drove him inside, how much it made him want to wrap Baekhyun in his arms and kiss those chapped lips senseless.

Instead of protesting, Baekhyun’s parting gift was a hug — gentle and lingering — and a single question in the form of a whisper: “When are you coming back?”

Chanyeol didn’t bother to answer, because the answer was never. He didn’t want to ever step foot into that compound again, with its caging cave walls, or its high-tech gizmos designed to create the illusion of freedom, of the real world outside... And besides, if he did ever return, it wouldn’t be to throw his arms around Baekhyun and kiss him again. That opportunity, as blissful and sweet as it was, had been the first and last of its kind.

Instead of relaying all this to the raven-haired boy, he gazed down at him with a storm of emotions dominating his heart, unable to rip himself away from the force of the gale. A smile tugged at his lips, even in the midst of this horrible situation, and he took a step back before that smile could doom him.

“Goodbye, Baek.”

He didn’t wait for the boy’s reply. He left him there on the steps of the ivy-covered building, and traced his steps through the counterfeit cozy village, dodging past each of the Wu members who called out to him, and ignoring their maddeningly concerned gazes. He sprinted out of the cave, through the tunnel, past the guards, and into the woods, collapsing against the hood of his ramshackle car, all the while being left winded by two burning black eyes like coals.

He climbed inside and drove off, without another word to Baekhyun, the Wu family, or his friends. He forgot all of their names and all of their faces; now, the only memory he had was of a telephone number, printed neatly on a card.

“9,2,8...” He murmured the digits to himself, one by one, over and over, like the words to a prayer. The card had been lost long ago, he knew, but the numbers would forever be burned into his brain.

Chanyeol waited until he was out of Jerome to pull over to the side of the road, isolated and cold on a spine-chilling summer night like this one. He took a deep breath, briefly pondering if this was what he truly desired. Did he want to see the entire Wu clan burn to the ground, their mafia empire collapsing along with them? Did he want Baekhyun to suffer for the wrongdoings of his family too? Did he want to know if Baekhyun had been the one who attacked Tao? Did he really want to deal with any of this wicked family anymore?

_I trust you, Chanyeol_ , he heard Baekhyun whispering to him, purely and sweetly when they were up on the mountaintop. _And I know you trust me too_.

“But that was before I knew what a monster you are,” Chanyeol murmured to himself, alone in the decrepit old truck. His fingers trembled ever so slightly as he dialed a number on his phone, ears pricking up when it began to ring.

Ice-cold blood shot into his veins when the ringing ended, and a deep voice on the other end spoke to him in a kind, warm tone:

“Hello, Park Chanyeol. I’ve been waiting for your call.”


End file.
